It’s official: Jeremy Scott, fashion’s camp connoisseur, has stepped down as Moschino’s creative director after a decade at the helm. Leaving one seriously kitsch legacy, the Missouri-born maverick stretched the limits of taste beyond repair, using the Italian house as a vessel to elevate and celebrate pop culture in all its tacky splendour. Not bad for a Midwestern gay boy that once saw his high school halls as his own personal, if not bully-prone, catwalk.
Taking the reins in October 2013 from former creative director, Rossella Jardini, Jeremy was a fitting successor, honouring the house’s heritage of provocation and irony throughout his tenure. In fact, the farmboy-turned-runway-royal was offered several gigs elsewhere, but it was Moschino’s proposition that took his fancy. Given the late founder Franco Moschino’s bizarro designs, which spanned everything from tongue-and-cheek apes of Chanel suits to shopping bag dresses, it’s easy to see why Jeremy – whose namesake label rose to fame with banknote trench coats and bin-bag dresses – would accept.
Spurred by a Warholian sense of taste, Jeremy’s postmodern approach perceived the faceless veneer of branding and corporations with a knowing wink. “I’m trying to make joy. I’m trying to make happiness,” he told us in 2016. “And that, I don’t consider superficial. That, I consider extremely necessary.” Fast forward to now, and he’s woven a tapestry of fashion moments from McDonald’s and Barbie collaborations to Katy Perry’s iconic Burger costume. To mark the end of an era, we chart his Moschino milestones.
I’m Lovin’ It
Taking no prisoners, Jeremy’s debut collection was a declaration of love to the Golden Arches, replete with red and gold hues, paper-cup accessories and cowprint leathers. Teamed with Pop Tart and cheese biscuit packaging prints, the offering, entitled ‘Fast Fashion’, served as an ode to the all-American institutions we hate and love in equal measure.
“A huge part of my draw to Jeremy’s work is his ability to heal and speak to my inner child,” says Joey Arias, who owns over 700 Jeremy Scott designs. “McDonald’s was so ingrained into my childhood and his playful integration of American fast-food iconography into Italian fashion touched not only my heart but allowed that little kid in me to see himself.” Since then, Jeremy has peppered his shows with sat fats aplenty, bringing the burger back for his Cruise 2022 collection alongside a fried-egg peplum and pancake millinery. Yum.
In a Barbie World
For his sophomore collection’s muse, Jeremy looked to Barbie, another late-capitalist icon steeped in problematic body-image ideology. Fantastic in plastic, the Mattel doll appeared in coiffured bouffants and saccharine pink outfits printed with ‘Moschino’ in the toy franchise’s font. Sporty Barbie rocked a headband and dumbbells, classic Barbie wore fuchsia-piped jeans-and-a-nice-top, while holiday Barbie came with Moschino-monogrammed luggage and a plastic coat hanger to boot.
Not long after, an actual Moschino Barbie doll aired, complete with an aptly cheesy campaign. “She’s the most Moschino Barbie ever,” exclaims one of the kids in the commercial. “Moschino Barbie is so fierce,” says another. By 2016, Jeremy Scott earned his own Ken doll, primed in the same TV colour bar tuxedo he had worn to the 2015 MTV Music Video Awards. Of course, this taste for toys was core to Jeremy, who launched his first Moschino fragrance, TOY, with the famous bear mascot, referencing the teddy-decked necklines of Franco Moschino’s AW88/89 collection — and who, for SS21, presented perhaps one of the most elaborate puppet shows in fashion history, complete with marionette versions of industry bigwigs including Anna Wintour, Vanessa Friedman and Hamish Bowles in attendance.
Inside Joke
The designer’s plush toy wears a t-shirt that reads, “This is not a Moschino Toy.” One of myriad slogans he deployed during his stint at the brand, this line later appeared across the brand’s campaigns, acknowledging the foundation of self-awareness that Franco had built the house upon. Just like the SS91 shirts pasted with the words, ‘Too much irony’, Jeremy’s wordplay stopped both himself and Moschino from taking life too seriously.
True to his philosophy, Jeremy gave a bow at his inaugural Moschino show wearing the legendary, ‘I don’t speak Italian, but I do speak Moschino’ t-shirt, ribbing himself before the critics could. As it goes, this sense of humour first brought Jeremy to the house’s attention, and vice versa. “I love the mix of high glamour with high humour,” he once said. “The way that things look super elegant, but at the same time bonkers.”
Let Them Eat Cake
Where AW14 called on cereal brand prints and ‘Fur real’ puns, Jeremy’s later collections indulged in surrealism. Reaching its (un)natural conclusion in AW23’s warping mock Chanel suits, his penchant for Salvador Dali aesthetics first emerged during SS17 in uncanny trompe l’oeil biker jacket leotards and illusions of lingerie and gold medallions, alongside frozen-in-time flying skirts.
“The most iconic thing he’s done at Moschino is reignite interest and bring his magic to the main stage at events like the Met Gala,” says Joey Arias. Case in point: the Met’s ‘Notes on Camp’ iteration in 2019, when Jeremy dressed long-time poster girl Katy Perry in a battery-powered chandelier dress, resplendent with Swarovski crystals and a boned crinoline. Months later, he went full Marie Antoinette, dressing models in tiered cake dresses that glistened with faux icing.
Elsewhere, the designer used his trippy imagination more directly, particularly in SS23’s gamut of rubber-ringed dresses and lilo shawls. “I was thinking about how people are talking about inflation, inflation, inflation,” he said. “So, I created a collection that literally inflates.”
Moschino Man
Ever the provocateur, Jeremy prodded at every nettle metrosexual masculinity tiptoed around. Sheer bodysuits and gilded budgie smugglers for SS16? Check. A trans-seasonal splash of leopard print? Obligatory.
For Jeremy, these frictions were fair game. Butch safety nets were coming down, whether that was through jibes at Adonis pecs in his AW19 Roman chest plate, his ‘Gayboy’ collaboration with Playboy, or his camp bastardisations of tailoring that were dipped in Gilbert and George screenprints or screaming soda graphics.
The Moschino man was steamy, too. Just a gloss over the smouldering swimwear campaigns warrants a browser history and cache clear. “I mean, if you can’t have a little fun under your pants then why even wear underpants?!” said Jeremy in 2018. As always, it goes back to the designer’s personal mantra: make it fun.