Moschino: a chaos of provocative originality
Moschino: a chaos of provocative originality
As the world prepares to live the legendary 1980s, an irreverent Franco Moschino begins to ride the wave of rebellious originality with collections that symbolize a provocative vivacity in which the ugly becomes beautiful and the disrespectful becomes boring normality. It’s time for fashion to start playing its game to convert every convention because if you like the garment you used last year, then you’ll use it again this year and the year after that.
When you thought about the fashion world in 1983, it was easy to attribute to this sector a great communicative and social value rather than a simple productive-commercial system of material goods: fashion was much more and Franco Moschino, with his innovative creativity, wanted to prove it. These were the years of excess and extravagance expressed in the chromatic mixes of the certainly particular taste of bright colors combined with prints; while leggings with leg warmers seemed to have been elected expression of a frenetic lifestyle with attention to the care of one’s body on one side, and the ostentation of an unbridled luxury symbol on the other, a race towards success where the main protagonist was exactly that power dressing, with its oversized jackets and shoulder straps with their aura of seriousness typical of a businesswoman, took place. An exaggerated, rock and punk fashion, in contrast with the rules of a tradition revisited with a prouder look, and whatever the choice, those clothes needed to be undoubtedly flaunted with a certain confidence.
On this wave of a rebellious originality, the collections signed by Moschino became more and more an expression of a provocative vivacity, the result of a free creativity, always devoted to a fashion that made extravagance its hallmark. In Moschino’s mind, rebellion and irreverence traveled on the same tracks and it is precisely from this conviction that a language with brazen instinct began to take shape: the ugly became beautiful while the disrespectful became normality. After all, if you can’t be elegant, at least be extravagant. With Franco Moschino the fashion world was starting to play around with a game capable of subverting any convention, from collections to advertisements, managing to banish each setting because if you like the garment you used last year, then you’ll use it this year and the year after that. Inspired by a creativity signed Jean-Paul Gautier, Franco launched collections that spoke the language of contestation in an irony capable of teasing the ideals of a society focused only on the image. He revisited the elegance signed by Chanel with a suit where buttons had been replaced by lovely sunflowers, skirts made of ties and jackets with fried eggs printed on the pockets, tops with trompe-l’oeil breasts and gritty evening jackets in perfect torero style. As always, the words turned out to be a perfect weapon of denunciation and this is how the clothes with the motto No stress, No dress and the Moschifo logoed t-shirts were born. But why set limits when the Moschino brand could have much more? And so the second lines Cheap & Chic, Moschino Jeans and collections of lingerie, costumes, accessories and perfumes took shape. The stores turned into huge bazaars with themed windows where you could really find everything, the fashion shows became moments of spectacle while the advertisements became bolder and bolder. In 1994, a cardiac arrest put an end to this chaos of creativity that never took on the role of designer but always that of a decorative painter, yet the power of that confusion meant that that message remained well imprinted in a collective imaginary immune to the passing of time.
This totally irreverent view of reality finally saw the light again when in 2013 the madness of the American Jeremy Scott signed the first catwalk for Moschino as the new creative director of the brand. The time came again for the anti-conformism signed Moschino to make fun of everything, including fashion and this is how a woman passed from perfect Barbie girl in all pink to a stylish fast food from McDonald’s happy meal, from cartoon lover to instinctive spokeswoman of a scribbled 80s fashion, and perfums became Eau de Toilette detergent sprays. Certainly Maison Moschino can breathe a sigh of relief because, despite the passage of time, the brand still knows how to make people talk about it, for better or for worse, and that chaos of provocative originality is in truly good hands.
MOSCHINO FUN FACTS — #DIDYOUKNOW
* Did you know that Franco Moschino loved to invite press members to his shows with a save the date that resembled the shape of underwear?
* Did you know that in 1988 Franco Moschino presented the first ecological furs with the Fur for Fun collection?
* Did you know that during his fashion shows Franco Moschino used to interrupt the show with acts denouncing the fashion system? An example of this is the 1989 “ Couture” catwalk where, when the show was interrupted, Moschino launched the Fashion Blitz, a video in which the designer explained why the fashion world would have to give up traditional catwalks.
Originally published at https://www.nustox.com on August 9, 2019.
