2014 was the summer of crop tops, tight-ass skirts, and logo mania, and the winter of 60s nostalgia, gigantic coats, and ultra-graphic futuristic streetwear. A new generation of feminists were spawned as designers (and Beyoncé) flexed their activist muscles, and a 90-year-old lesbian couple finally got to marry in Iowa while gays all over Africa fought for their basic human rights.
The world took mad to the next level in the Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, Nigeria, and Missouri, while designers created a new tribe of peace-loving flower children with more men wearing florals than ever before. Spain crowned their new king while Lupita Nyong’o was crowned red carpet queen in bold Prada, and Jared Leto taught the world that longhaired fashion boys win Oscars, too. Brangelina finally tied the knot (in Atelier Versace and Salvatore Ferragamo), as did Kimye (in Givenchy), and original super couple Melanie Griffiths and Antonio Banderas (Melantonio?) called it quits.
Fashion lost a beloved legend in Oscar de la Renta and an invaluable driving force in Professor Louise Wilson, while Schiaparelli and Loewe rebooted themselves for new eras to come. But amongst the joys, sorrows and day-to-day fashion circus, there were thrilling highlights huge enough that only a list could do them justice. Here, in no particular order, are the top ten fashion moments of 2014.
Nicholas Ghesquière’s debut at Louis Vuitton
As the designer who is perhaps most universally lauded as a fashion innovator, Nicholas Ghesquière’s first show for Louis Vuitton had the industry in full-on nail-biting, semi-squealing, tween-girl-before-a-Justin-Bieber-concert panic mode. As Freja Beha hit the runway in the first look on the morning of March 5th, they all breathed a sigh of relief, then went out and bankrupted themselves buying collection signature pieces such as the orange-collared leather coat and the heroically named Eternal Strap Boot.
Jean Paul Gaultier’s year of nostalgia
It was a big year for Jean Paul Gaultier, who started off on a joyous note when his The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition opened at the Barbican. A newfound love for the French designer spread an infectious hype around the fashion landscape, which only increased when i-D premiered our Eurotrash reunion film co-starring Antoine de Caunes and Jennifer Saunders. In September, JPG announced that his ready-to-wear show in Paris would be his last for the line, which would also go out of production in favour of his long-standing haute couture enterprise. The designer put on the show of his life at Le Grand Rex, staging a beauty pageant for his epic farewell to prêt-a-porter, as Gaultier would no doubt insist on calling it.
John Galliano’s Maison Martin Margiela hiring
After a three-year break from fashion in the wake of the media scandal that marked the end of his epic reign at Dior, in October it was confirmed that John Galliano had joined Maison Martin Margiela. The moment was huge because Galliano – regardless of scandals and hiatuses – is one of the biggest and most successful designers in the world. It was also huge because Margiela hasn’t put a name to its design team since its founder left in 2009, and because the Maison went through something of a media storm this summer when Suzy Menkes outed its then-designer, Matthieu Blazy, who since went to Céline.
Chanel’s supermarket show set
Out of all the magnificent show sets Karl Lagerfeld has created at Chanel, his supermarket concept for the autumn/winter 2014 show in March took the prize. Models walked around the aisles with baskets and trolleys, browsing a massive all-Chanel-themed range of products from gardening gloves to carbon containers. After the show, guests went mad in the venue amassing huge amounts of groceries to take home, only to be stopped by cashiers who exchanged their harvest for nail varnish. It was a brilliantly orchestrated illustration of greed in a world obsessed with consumption, and a sly underhand on the part of Lagerfeld to all his fashion guests.
Dries Van Noten’s Inspirations exhibition
Designers are nothing without their inspirations, and this year Dries Van Noten put all of his on display at Les Art Décoratifs in Paris. Under the straightforward title Inspirations, the exhibition took spectators through everything from Van Noten’s teenage bedroom to his love for Renaissance art, and was hailed by critics as one of the most vibrant fashion exhibitions ever. It sparked the perhaps most electric year of the designer’s thirty-year career, and gets its second wind when Inspirations re-opens with new art pieces in Antwerp in February 2015.
Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier’s debut at MBMJ
As Marc Jacobs said goodbye to Louis Vuitton in 2013, something huge was bound to happen in his eponymous world. We kind of knew it was coming as it had already been announced prior to Jacobs’ resignation from Vuitton, but that made the debut of dynamic duo Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier at Marc by Marc Jacobs no less special. In one sweeping first collection for autumn/winter 2014, the diffusion line designers electrified New York Fashion Week with their crazy, urban, ultra-graphic girl power statement for the brand henceforth officially known as MBMJ.
Jeremy Scott’s takeover at Moschino
You wonder if Moschino actually knew just how successful their hiring of Jeremy Scott would be for the house, which reportedly wasn’t doing too well financially before the American designer came along. Enter Scott, one collection inspired by fast food, another by Barbie, an ingenious fast-fashion scheme that saw Scott’s items for Moschino retailing straight after the show, and bam: Moschino is back on top of its game. It was the ultimate fashion success story of 2014.
Rick Owens’ twentieth anniversary
Few things in 2014 were more magnificent than walking down Oxford Street and seeing a giant Rick Owens torso holding a live torch on top of the hallowed Selfridge’s canopy. The designer celebrated his twentieth anniversary this year, and did it with some of his best work to date, including his autumn/winter collections inspired by Nijinsky’s Afternoon of the Faun, in which a faun steals a nymph’s scarf and masturbates to it. Happy birthday!
Kimye’s American Vogue cover
Love them or hate them’ is a sentence often written on the topic of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and 2014 was the year they made everyone take a stance. All the around cyberspace and the real world, people were debating Anna Wintour’s decision to feature the couple on her April cover. (Months before, i-D featured a story encouraging Wintour to give the pop cultural phenomenon exactly that.) Soon after the cover, Kimye married in a spectacular ceremony in Florence, the day after a regal rehearsal dinner at Versailles. Oh, and then Kim broke the internet.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Harry Carr