Maybe it was the calming effect of the faux snow that decorated the floor and fell from the ceiling at today's Moschino show, but Jeremy Scott's latest offering for the Italian house felt more subdued than normal. The theme - a trip to the slopes, or a Winter Wonderland, depending on your sporting prowess - was less gimmicky than seasons past. It was still tacky as hell, but there were fewer logos and more textures. Not that the lack of branding led to a sense of measurement or subtlety. Scott had replaced all the wording and emblems with something even more divisive - fur. One doesn't want to think about how many poor creatures died to turn the Moschino models into those strange Puffy-Daddy-in-the-90s-cum-porn-star-caricatures-of-a-chalet-boy hybrids. But then Scott never does things by half and maybe his championing of fur - an item that's had a resurgence on the runways in recent seasons despite is heritage of controversy - is a way of pushing the ethics debate back into the headlines again. Dries may get away with a few coloured collars and Fendi may have made eyes roll with their poor taste fur runway a few seasons back, but you can bet Moschino's championing of fluff and fuzz will win more headlines and get more people talking and consequently agitating. Column inches and criticism are what sells Moschino garb so you can't blame Scott for wanting to rile us.
So what about the clothes under all those skins? Well there weren't that many. Sure there were the expected bulky jackets and joggers, but nudity was the stand out trend for A/W 15. We saw bare chest after bare chest. A festival of beefcakes. Scott had thrown in some scantily clad female models to add extra spice. Naomi Campbell may have said she'd rather go naked than wear fur, but Jourdan Dunn will do both - there she was semi-nude in Moschino underwear and a furry bumbag and snow boots.
They say it's bad luck to have your Christmas trees up past 6 January. The Moschino set designers clearly aren't superstitious. But then Scott doesn't care about conventions or expectations. It'll be Christmas if he wants it to be and it'll snow if he wants it that way, even if it's 3 weeks too late or 346 days too early for that to be appropriate. It's man-made, manufactured joy. Forced fun. But how apt given the surface-nature of his fashions: they lack depth but play into our obsession with immediacy. Speed seems to be more important than soul these days, so maybe Moschino are on to a winner. Look around Instagram and it seems our taste level is set at bad so this circus was bang on point.
