JW ANDERSON’S RAVE GODS

With a look at this season’s collections, it is plain to see that the underground grit and bubblegum pop of the 90s have become an overarching aesthetic power source. At London Collections Men, the growing influence of this decade of rave gods, suburban misfits, and high-gloss fashion was no better represented than by JW Anderson’s Fall/Winter 2016 collection. The presentation featured club kids in transparent chokers walking down the runway in cartoon-print jackets, oversize grunge cardigans, and trench coats with ad hoc-looking fur lapels. In a head-spinning, JW Anderson style, the looks appeared as something quintessential yet never-before seen, a mutant classic forged from pre-Internet subcultures brought into the limelight. Such a paradox of exposure was mirrored in JW Anderson’s much-talked about move to broadcast the runway show on Grindr, a brilliant way of collapsing the parallel yet intertwined worlds of fashion presentations and anonymous gay hook-ups.

But first and foremost, JW Anderson’s 90s atmosphere was delivered in droves by fashion’s music mastermind Michel Gaubert. Crammed with hardcore techno and thick ambient breaks, Gaubert’s mix for the presentation recalls a demented taxi ride between nightclubs. As Gaubert says, “it was a proposal of a journey into someone’s mind. Getting dressed to go out, discovering new things, and stopping on the way. Therefore the very rigorous beats are broken by melodic or more dreamy moods.”

Pulsing one minute and spaced-out the next, the mix sheds mental states like discarded pieces of clothing strewn across the floor. It is a burst of energy so big that it cannot go too long without an outfit change.