New York super-designer's new collection is deeply surf!
Do you, like me, get a kick when surfing hits the fashion runway? Or does it make you heave an anguished sigh, a final nail in surfing’s coffin etc?
Last week, the New York designer Thom Browne, who made his name convincing hip New Yorkers to wear suit pants several inches too short, and lately, two thousand dollar sweat pants, kicked live a fashion show to a Beach Boys soundtrack and a surf theme.
Like pastel fireflies, squadrons of tall men dressed as parrots swarmed the stage of the Paris Event Centre, elegant fingers peeling off swim caps and suits to reveal stencilled one-piece swimsuits.
Let’s study the deeply Zoolander-esque report from Hint Fashion Magazine’s Stéphane Gaboué.
“When the suspenseful strains of the Jaws soundtrack started on the soundtrack, a model with a shark’s head and dorsal fin roamed the runway. Then a squad of models, their faces concealed behind bathing caps, gray make-up, and sunglasses, arrived wearing capacious black tuxedos that, again, morphed into wetsuits. Once removed, they revealed the show’s main courses, the most unexpected and dressiest variations on the wetsuit, zippered in the back.
“The wetsuit theme allowed the designer to experiment with color and trompe l’oeil, for example a green mink jacket or white pants with a gigantic shark bite taken out. As usual, the craftsmanship was impressive, as some jackets were made of broderie anglaise, a green slicker had an astrakhan collar, and one tailcoat was made of satin duchesse with faille piping. Colorful brogues completed the looks. To add to the weirdness, models dressed as seagulls and parrots flapped their wings about the room, without ever taking flight.
“The parade ended with a suspenseful strip tease, with models doffing their precious raiment to reveal one-piece swimsuits. (How come swimwear has vanished from the runways?) They grabbed Thom Browne-branded surfboards while The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows blared on the soundtrack. The whole spectacle was hilarious, campy, entertaining, and at times undecipherable. And obviously, some of the clothes were difficult to imagine beyond the runway or the hands of stylists, but who cared? It was a fantasy, and it worked.”
Did it work for you too?
Does your chest inflate with pride that our little game could be so influential in fashion?
Do you want to dance a rigadoon of joy?
If all this thrills, maybe you’re the kind of stud who wants to armlock a pair of $725 surf trunks.
This is why i miss the Tsubi boys. “Fuck, we just spend the last 3 days snorting coke off nasty Kings Cross hoe’s tits, what we gonna do for the show tomorrow? Lets just release some rats, that will surely go down well”. *snorts a hollywood*
Did they sell out before they became the Ksubi boys? Downgrade to Keta?
Surfing is real and it has affected culture. Has another sport been such a catalyst?
Gladiators.
So in love with this. Who would have thunk it. Surfing saved by high fashion!
Well, this Thom dude must be a genius or a surfer because he nailed it: it seems his show, or whatever it was he orchestrated, was esoteric, weird, pointless, super-kooky, and fun too watch; pretty much surfing in a nutshell . . . those tourist birds flapping around like idiots? The kooks in the wetsuits? The whack jobs with facekinis, glasses, and gloves? Classic . . . the guy’s a genius. Bravo Thom! Bravo!
The bird coming down the runway is hilarious and frightening. It’s quite unique.
That was just Paul Fisher running across the stage after having a few too many martinis.
Finally somebody has distilled the essence of our culture into a range of consumables I can be proud to wear.
It is fucking shit.