Where the wild things are
MANILA, Philippines - After a tough and bleak year in both fashion and finances, it’s wonderful to see at China Fashion Week a 2010 forecast that is simultaneously reassuring and confounding. Reassuring because Chinese creativity is reaching ever greater heights, blowing away the old stereotype of manufacturing-era “Made in China,” making way for the culturally-cool “Created in China.” Confounding, however, because as you see models walk down the runway (or more accurately, photos of them walking down the runway), you’re like, WTF? It’s less about fashion and finery than concepts and costumes.
One collection takes all the colors of the ROYGBIV, throws them on to every pattern and shape available to graphic design, and for good measure adds a few stuffed toys, resulting in a frenetic display of bubble gum pop culture and kawaii cuteness. It’s an in-your-face allegiance to adolescence, and as China hurtles into the ambiguous territory of superpowerdom, it’s also perhaps a last claim on innocence.
On the other end of the frequency we see strange performative outfits that seem to be in parts inspired by Lady Gaga and Salvador Dali. Lady Dada? With these clothes the human element has been completely obfuscated by black body suits and huge headpieces, leaving us with simple geometry and complex meditations on time. It’s as if a black hole appeared in the future and spat out random objects from the modern era. Which is something that could be said about China in general — it’s a nation bursting with energy, both dark and light, but sometimes they just don’t know what to do with it.
