Jeremy Scott’s debut at Moschino last season has already turned the constellation into so much of a phenomenon that getting into Thursday night’s show pretty much resembled the queue for an underage discothèque: pushing and screaming, that is. And when you made it to the runway space only to find a Moschino-branded Barbie Doll on your seat, the more the suit-inclined members of the fashion press really started to look out of place. Scott, of course, would later take to the runway wearing a t-shirt with the words “Moschino, for ages 5 and upwards” so the effect was no doubt intentional.
Few things in life can make a child of the 90s happy quite like revisiting the divine gift to music that is Aqua, and when the synthesizer intro to Barbie Girl resounded in the massive venue, the queue experience twenty minutes earlier suddenly felt rather nostalgic. Continuing his rebranding of famous symbols into the Moschino logo – last season tackled McDonald’s golden arches – Scott had knocked on the hallowed doors of Mattel and created an entire collection based on Barbie and her many incarnations.
There were a couple of high society Barbies in little dresses, Charlotte Free wheeled herself out as Rollerblade Barbie at full speed down the runway, there was a kind of Beauty Barbie in a priceless towel dress, Daphne Groeneveld as Sporty Barbie, and an entire segment devoted to Barbie bridal gowns with an instrumental church version of Barbie Girl to see them out.It was a shame Lene Nyström, the Balmain-wearing voice behind Aqua, wasn’t there, because even though the collection was about something much older than the late-mid-90s group, it felt like a return to a time when being, looking and sounding cartoonish was the end-all-and-be-all of pop culture and youth. Next to Aqua, the soundtrack included Fantastic Plastic Machine’s L’aventure Fantastique, Stacey Q’s Two of Hearts, The Tamperer’s If You Buy This Record Your Life Will Be Better, Madonna’s Material Girl, Amanda Blank’s Make Up, and Chicks on Speed’s Glamour Girl. The collection had all the fast-fashion covetability the brand’s rapidly increasing fan base could dream of (a huge phone cover that looks like Barbie’s ‘cell phone’, anyone?), and the show all the shameless, frivolous fun a Scott invitation promises. The only thing missing? Barbie’s boyfriend Ken: perhaps history’s first man to be as sexually objectified as his female counterpart.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Harry Carr