Disrupting NYFW

Disrupt fashion week.  That was the task at hand.  Or at least that was the remit from Lexus’ perspective when they gave Gareth Pugh a giant carte blanche to present an immersive experience to really kick off New York Fashion Week.  What we got was a wildly different Gareth Pugh show than we had ever experienced.  It felt like a one-off aberration as we entered a vast pier space and was confronted by LCD screens placed first in circular formation like a 21st century zoetrope, then two giant ones.  This was to be a Gareth Pugh theme park of sorts, where shuffling from one area to another became an obstacle course.  The overriding message?  You better work for it if you want to see what Pugh was presenting here.  And indeed, over the years, Pugh has built up a core following that would be willing to go the extra mile to fully immerse themselves into this “happening”.  Akin to the followers of Pugh’s supporter Rick Owens, even in the darkened space you could spot these clusters of shadowy figures, wearing a mix of Pugh, Owens and the like. animal horns, shredded chiffon,

9.30pm came around and the paganistic SS15 collection started whirring around in the digital zoetrope screens – flashing and moving rapidly so that you only caught snatches of this and that.  Wicca mistresses, quasi-religious figures and scarecrows whirled about in burlap sack masks, harlequin check and feathers.  The point wasn’t to see the clothes though.  Pugh’s catwalk vision has been faithfully extreme in most of his shows and the disparity between what goes out on the runway and what he sells in reality is such that he’s one of the few designers that could get away with this mode of presentation.  It’s the vision that’s important not the final product, which will sit pretty in a showroom later in Paris.

Onto the second screen and thunder, lightening and smoke was replicated as body met screen in a frenzied dance-off choreographed by Wayne McGregor’s Random Company.  As the silhouettes flailed and morphed on the video background, the real dancers mirrored them.  They stalked around with a savage grace.  It was a menacing side to Pugh’s work that has been somewhat subdued at his shows in Paris.

For the final portion of the performance, dancers from the same company moved in freeform on the floor, projected from aerial view onto the screen.  Their movement was less jerky and jagged than the previous act.  This was to precede the final and lasting image of the evening – a serene angel rising slowly, with wings of silk trailing beautifully, worshipped by the dancers at her feet.  This was a palpitating and emotive moment, the sort that I remember from Pugh’s early shows in London.

I stayed on to catch the repeated second show at 10.30pm because the first time round, it was far too crowded to see anything and I hadn’t worked out you had to move very quickly from one screen to the next to catch anything.  The second time was where everything clicked.  Every movement could be analysed and every image resonated.  In truth, if there was nobody around in the space and you were experiencing this like you would in an empty art gallery, that would have been the ideal situation.  That you were watching it with people busy grabbing selfies and exclaiming “What is going on?” every two seconds kind of ruined the experience somewhat.  Guess that was the “Disrupted” part of the show.

This experience could not have been possible with another designer other than Pugh.  There are few designers that have such constant and core collaborators like soundtrack architect Matthew Stone and stylist Katie Shillingford.  There are also few designers who have the complete vision to conjure up this triptych where moving image, physical performance and yes, some clothes come together.  Was it worth “working” for the complete experience?  Yes it was.

P.S. In lieu of Lexus sponsoring Pugh’s show, I had to give a mad props to what has been a head turner at NYFW.  This Lexus RC F beaut has been given an Anish Kapoor-esque mirrored finish with velvet handles and has literally been stopping traffic the past few days as part of Lexus’ #DesignDisrupted fashion week mission.  My mission in life seems to be to accumulate the oddest “ride” experiences of fashion week.  It’s been great emerging out of the car and being a wallflower next to this automobile objet d’art.

P.P.S. Before the “You sold out!” police start ranting, I am indeed riding around in this car for the week but this post is not a contractual obligation.  The car just neatly slots into the whole disrupt narrative.  And plus… it is a frickin’ cool car.