Maison the Faux New York Fashion Week SS18
Represented by EB Consults Worldwide.
In literature, the “intentional fallacy” is used to describe the erroneous notion that the artist’s interpretation of her / his own work should be believed. In the context of a ready to wear presentation, this means often the press information about a work of art contains the artist’s attempt to be not only the artist, but their own critic, as well.
Teasing apart the artist’s intent for the collection and the observer’s experience of it becomes especially important in the context of a presentation as strange as Maison the Faux’s at this New York Fashion Week.
(We should add here that we are big fans of the Dutch meta-fictional fashion house.)
Maison the Faux: NYFW SS18
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Maybe because of my awkwardly placed seat at the show — essentially in the back, to the side — I was able to appreciate the wild imagination of the looks for themselves without bearing witness to the dramatic staging. (This is, by the way, a rather fancy way of saying I had a crummy seat and couldn’t see what was happening.)
So it was only in the press photos and by watching the replay that I got to see the curious spectacle I (apparently) missed: what appeared to be some sort of strange being (to find the kindest interpretation, as other, less savory ones came to mind) tormenting, or possibly baptizing a number of people who seemed to be worker drones of the future.
Now that the yin (of my subjective observation) has been somewhat sketched out, we can blend in the yang of the press materials, which state:
“During the show of the Dutch fictional fashion house, all of the models joined into a FAUX ritual. A ritual in which they surrendered themselves to the false promise of a new and better world.
“During this ritual, models were baptised from a water dispenser, christening them as FAUXmosapiens, before entering vertical, incubator-like tanning beds. We posed the question: ‘Why and who do you choose to follow?’
“In a world that (still) struggles to see us all as individual human beings, MAISON the FAUX offers an alternate world; the FAUXmosapien world. An evolved world in which everyone can be themselves and let go of beauty ideals and trends.”
You can let me know if that made sense to you. (Fortunately, we have a feeling it was meant to be humorous.)
Returning to the weak watercolors of my yin, what I saw from my lugubrious little corner of the room was a number of extremely imaginative, colorful looks, that I could see being the common mode of dress in, say, 2455.
Like everything we’ve seen from Maison the Faux, the collection dazzled with the audacity of the best of modern art.
the collection dazzled with the audacity of the best of modern art
Most visions of the future are either utopian or dystopian. In this case, the fashion house’s vision seemed, in a sense, more measured. Both blissful and fearful elements were mixed in.
The fact that some of the looks seemed to be tattered bouclé jackets reminiscent of Chanel, might also lead you to imagine the garments were the result of some fashion apocalypse yet to come.
Such as, perhaps, more quasi-celebrities and self-obsessed selfie-takers taking up valuable space in the front row.
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Learn More
maisonthefaux.com
NYFW schedule
With love,
FWO
