The girls walk backwards (see below)...
It has been almost two years since London’s biggest fashion shows abandoned Kensington in favour of the West End, but to our delight, the V&A has brought the F-word back in this museum-infested area with their educational Fashion in Motions, the very first of which featured Kenzo’s exuberant womenswear collection. SUPERSWEET’s Poonperm Paitayawat reports...
Briefly about Fashion in Motions? This is not a boringly blunt field trip, say, to an exhibition, hence no information card, no punctual coach pick-up, no dull and nerd-oriented guided tour, and no age limit! Fashion in Motions attempts to simulate a fashion show experience with the positives being that you do not need to queue and kill the persons ahead of you for seats, sights and goody bags.
And this time, the V&A does Kenzo. In case you do not know, the house of Kenzo was born out of one Japanese talent Takada Kenzo, who defied the rigidity of Japanese gender stereotypes and set out for a fashion career in the 60s. Takeda brought colour, oriental loose-and-baggy silhouette and bohemian playfulness with him to Paris. This is not to mention that Takeda broke the mould of couture at the end of the 60s admonishing fashion that “allowed freedom and poetry,” which within a decade, Takeda’s imminent success was witnessed on the front covers of Elle and his first boutique “Jungle Jap” opened its door in Paris. Now retired, Takeda handed over power to Antonio Marras who carries on the Kenzo legacy of “anti-couture” and never does fail to marry the aesthetic of the Orient with the allure of Sardinia where he orginates and elsewhere.
The collection seen at V&A Fashion in Motions included pieces selected from Marras’s Spring Summer 2011, but if you look back at their show in Paris, you’ll find the looks re-styled. Better? Yes, the V&A show was gazillion times more exciting than in Paris and could potentially give tripled heart attacks to the grannies in the audience.
Flow-y and flowery patchwork and layering was key, but with heavy and uber-high headwear and magnificent wooden flip-flops. Colours were clashing, while music roared and everybody’s hearts beat extremely fast. Then there came the embroidered fish net-like gown that blew us away. Near the end we all encountered one visual orgy with all the models - more than 30 of them - stomping out and forming a maze of colours and eclectic patterns on the catwalk. The orgasm, the most intimate fashion momentum, came in form of Signor Marras emerging from backstage, inches away. Gosh, we could have jumped up and humped him!