Does the word “elevated” mean anything these days? It’s certainly been coopted as a way to justify the countless kinds of pricey sweatpants and costly “sustainably made” white T-shirts on the market. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, from these expensive basics is the natty kitsch we’re seeing on some runways.
Perhaps most notably, designer Jonathan Anderson—who recently told T Magazine writer Nick Haramis that fashion designers are “kind of biblically hated”—has turned the humble pigeon into a fashion icon. Let’s take a gander at the results, shall we?
Introduced during the JW Anderson Fall/Winter 2022 runway show in Milan, a clutch bag shaped like the bird landed in several looks that throbbed with circuit party energy (the silver bodysuit being the thirstiest of all).
Read on after the jump for the full column!
If you do find yourself in the gutter outside the clerb at 8 AM, what better accompaniment to have than a quintessential emblem of squalor?
While they weren’t the only animals present in the collection—the line also offers a variety of chunky knit elephant accoutrements—the pigeons were definitely the most intriguing. Why would such a symbol of filth find itself rendered in 3D printed form and sold for almost a grand USD?
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If you ask the Internet, “the earth is in its flop era,” so it makes sense that these maligned creatures should be ready for a closeup.
(Maybe they’re the accessory we deserve, as shoppers nose through garbage bags for items from the GAP/Kanye collab?)
But Anderson gravitates towards kitsch continuously in his career, both at JW Anderson and the Spanish label Loewe.
Unlike the GAP gesture, which tweeters have begged to be revealed as a social experiment of some kind—and maybe, hopefully, it is—these designs veer towards being a rebuttal of the idea of taste.
Just as I wonder if everything is elevated, can anything be elevated—and what “content” actually describes today—so, too, do I muse that if most things seem awful, whether that’s even a useful barometer anymore. Like, where’s the true bottom to these trash heap times?
Speaking of taste, given how often a portion of this clip from the John Waters movie Desperate Living was passed around after the Supreme Court made its gravely unsound decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s apt to assert that humanity has reached the deepest lows of deranged fiction.
Here, high fashion steps in to welcome the formerly repugnant, esoteric, wacky, tacky or incomprehensible as commodifiable and therefore good. But whatever the intentions of an artist, be they Johnathan Anderson, Divine or Dolly Parton, there’s a distinct sniff of contempt toward certain approaches.
It’s an accepted practice in many forms of art, and has been for decades. But because of the delegitimization of fashion design—crystalized in Anderson’s quote at the top of this story, expressions of subtlety, irony and subversiveness in that medium are assumed to be painted with the same brush.
OMG, why not wear it? is our column for fashion lovers who are up for anything. It is an inspiration point, a place for dreaming, and a discussion of beauty, weirdness, and thought-provoking design moments as forms of connection. Written by Odessa Paloma Parker (@odessapaloma)
Compared to the ugly clothes being shown on the runways, a pigeon purse is a HUGE step up!! And pigeons are more beautiful than 99% of the current so-called models!!!
Much ado about nothing.