London’s anti-heroine, Mowalola does what she wants, when she wants. Last night, for example, she dragged it-kids and fash packers out in droves to deepest, darkest East London, ditching the official London Fashion Week schedule once again for something a little more her. Unhinged chaos, that is.
Her starting point? “I watched this really fucked up movie, Crash (1996), and that just set the tone for how wild I could go because the movie is about fetishising car crashes.” Notwithstanding the orthopaedic footwear lifted straight from the film, Mowalola treated this less as a direct reference than a carte blanche for smut and offbeat designs. Football polos were emblazoned with hentai, leather skirts no wider than belts clung to buttocks like McQueen bumsters, and elastic harnesses read ‘Mowalola’ – a must for style-savvy circuit queens. Elsewhere bras were belted across the back, while the familiar wet-look halterneck gowns showed face in black and red patina.
Within this sexually loaded array, however, lay political undertones. Distressed union jacks were splayed across leather skirts and hats, meanwhile, reds, whites and blues appeared across stocking-shrouded heels and cycling dresses alike. Japanese, Chinese and European flags were also incorporated, while the cursed soundbite of Donald Trump – “China, China, China” – was also heard in the soundtrack, itself a medley of warped pop bops from Nicki Minaj to Justin Timberlake, and some screamo to ease us in. “I have such an international team,” she explained. “With us, borders don’t really exist.
Indeed, Mowalola has long been a brand for the global fashion hackers, savvy to the ways late (late) capitalist insignia carries different meanings depending on where it ends up. Half a decade ago, she was musing on the Nigerian petrolheads reappropriating Toyota and Volkswagen car badges; last season, it was the New York Yankees franchise bastardised for belt buckles; and now, she’s giving the English sports brand Umbro a Mowa mashup. One Umbro ape, in particular, spliced two ribbed t-shirts together, forcing models to walk in twos as if conjoined at the arms. “It’s giving twin-personality,” said Mowalola. “We’re all different people, we have a dualness, good and bad – no one’s perfect.”
Despite its NSFW credentials, the collection was nonetheless hyper-wearable if you’re not fussed by a little flesh. That said, whether Mowalola described some pieces as “streetwear” because of their easy, modular appeal – Daisy Dukes, ombré tracksuits and back-to-front dad jeans with late-noughts bleach strips across the thighs – or because they looked too quotidian to pass a sex-club dress code remains a mystery.
As we’re learning, Mowalola thrives in the uncanny valley, taking items so safely banal, and then adding a snarling twist. A pinstripe banker suit is merged into a jumpsuit, sliced at the hips, jean pockets are positioned a little too high and waistbands are missing in action on sandblasted denim. As for the guy-jamas, these came with a drooping gusset and mis-sewn fly, paired with the kind of pointed, patent shoes you’d expect from an estate agent. Numbered polo shirts ripped on Hackett’s 90s designs with a ‘4 slim people’ print, throwing salt straight towards fashion’s oldest wound. The cringe-factor was palpable, but completely welcome.
After all, the double-entendres and close-to-the-bone jibes might not feel the most PC, but they’re undoubtedly picking scabs in all the right places. Mowalola’s is a dark humour, and not knowing whether you’re in on the joke or the joke’s on you is all part of the schtick. It’s the messy, liminal space between them that she embraces. As she put it, “It’s nice to be accepting. We’re all figuring shit out.”
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Images courtesy of Spotlight