JEREMY SCOTT

Jeremy Scott: New York Fashion Week’s Craziest Show

Jeremy Scott’s fall collection at New York Fashion Week mixed spectacle, pop culture, and fun, says Misty White Sidell.

Jeremy Scott’s fashion shows are as renowned for their spectacle as they are for their pop-culture-laden clothes. Wednesday afternoon’s show was no exception. The Daily Beast arrived to Milk Studios an hour before his show was scheduled to begin, riding the venue’s elevator with Maybelline model Charlotte Free, who had been cast to walk in the presentation.

Free, famous for her hot pink hair, was now sporting a dishwater gray style in addition to the oversize camouflage pants, army-issue boots, and twitches that are signature to Tompkins Square Park’s gang of homeless youth. She would have appeared out of place at, say, the J.Crew or Oscar de la Renta presentations a day prior. At Jeremy Scott, however, Free was no anomaly.

In fact, attending a Jeremy Scott show feels like you’ve stepped inside the Burning Man of fashion. Internet celebs and Brooklyn scene stealers fill its front row, masquerading in a clashing array of animal prints, neons, black lipstick, and some sort of outré hat—all worn in a single outfit. Indie stars like Terry Richardson, A$AP Rocky, and Olivier Zahm were there, too (as were some Korean pop stars), to take in Scott’s collection, which has previously referenced materials as diverse as Disney characters, fast food, and burqas.

Scott’s designs and following may appear baffling to an outsider, but once you take a gander at New York Fashion Week’s amassment of commercial shows, the admiration for him makes sense. He may have the wildest show on the schedule, but Scott follows his own fancy with an inimitable sense of cool-kid camp. For this, he’s widely known as the Jeff Koons of fashion.

The designer's aesthetic is sought after by big business, too—he's long collaborated with both Longchamp and Adidas. Soon after launching, their collaborative product lines became cult, collectible items among in-the-knows worldwide. Just look at the 50 or so fashion students who dutifully congregated outside his fashion show Wednesday as proof of his influence. And adding to the list, Scott announced a new joint project with Smart cars earlier this month.

For Fall 2013, the designer was “just trying to make a teenage boy’s bedroom fantasy of monsters come true and having those kinds of posters come to life as some sort of fantasy woman,” he explained backstage after his show, as a fanatic fan attacked newly minted supermodel Cara Delevingne.

Scott's take on monsters meant a wide array of shaggy faux furs that were cut into jackets, boots, and even mohawk wigs. Ninja Turtle green, animal prints, eyeballs, ironic slogans, and squiggle faces were present as well, and their combined force created an entertaining, albeit slightly alarming, sense of fun.

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Misty White Sidell

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