“This is what it feels like when your daughter becomes a teenager,” a colleague (and mother) from the American press noted after the Undercover show. Pretty Hate Bird was the title of Jun Takahashi’s dramatic collection – no doubt a Nine Inch Nails reference – which seemed to portray the loss of innocence through the life of a swan, this once baby-feathered cuddle toy that suddenly turns into a beautiful monster. Smells like teen spirit.
An extra cutesy (i.e. creepy) version of Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree echoed in a venue decked out in huge mutant skull apples, instantly setting an unnerving tone for a show, which portrayed the transition from child to young adult to visual and emotional flawlessness.
The first dresses played on the 50s prom cliché, petticoated to the max like some figurine spinning inside a music box, before a lilac tutu dress with feathering, worn with some pretty heavy black makeup, gave a shout-out to The Swan Lake (and possibly Black Swan, too), the soundtrack fading into Jerome Isma-Ae’s My Breath Has Been Taken.
The recurring apple motif and works by The Tallis Scholars on the sound system – including The Silver Swan and John Wilbye’s Draw on Sweet Night – had the instant religious effect Jun Takahashi masters better than a catholic priest, while the chronological de-saturation of colour, from pastels to the very black looks that closed the show, represented the childhood and teenage years of a girl, not different from Takahashi’s own tween daughter, as seen through the eyes of her father.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Mitchell Sams