Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is prompting a lot of discussion: What’s fashion’s role in a crisis like this? What’s the correct tone to strike on the runway? Should designers provide an escape? A balm? A rallying cry? Jeremy Scott, who found himself the closer on a day when all anyone could talk about was the outbreak of war 1,000 miles away (Milan is to Kyiv as New York City is to Minneapolis), opted for escape.
Conceived months ago, his Moschino set replicated the bedroom scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, down to the wall moldings and the Renaissance paintings. Backstage Scott wore a sweatshirt that read “Gilt Without Guilt.” Clearly, he’s been craving some opulence. “I was thinking about the furniture you’d find in a mansion: the Chesterfield dresser, grandfather clocks, picture frames, Persian rugs, birdcages,” he explained.
Pity the poor model who was a Coromandel screen, but there were other funny residential allusions, starting with an update to Franco Moschino’s famous “dinner suit” featuring real cutlery for fastenings. Adapting and expanding on that language, Scott showed a Stephen Jones-designed hat in the form of a painting spotlight, a handbag with a fancy toilet flush, and a bustier made from a metal tray and two well-placed soup tureens.
The audience lapped it up, if you’ll pardon the pun, eager for the distraction and apparently none too troubled by the yawning income gap, even if now feels like the moment for a little Jean-Jacques “Eat the Rich” Rousseau. In any case, other looks—a cocktail number embroidered with crystal chandeliers, Bella Hadid’s keyhole LBD—trod more lightly on the reference material.
Scott came out for his bow in the movie’s iconic red spacesuit. Half a century after its release, 2001: A Space Odyssey gets a 92% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes for its “delicate, poetic meditation on the ingenuity—and folly—of mankind.” Like the film, this collection exhibited a bit of both.
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