Fashion Loves a Clown: Here, 24 Big-Top Looks That Prove It From Dior Haute Couture to Alexander McQueen
Fashion Loves a Clown: Here, 24 Big-Top Looks That Prove It From Dior Haute Couture to Alexander McQueen
Fashion as entertainment and the runway show as “experience” are popular talking points in the industry, and Maria Grazia Chiuri delivered on both in a major way today. She literally brought the circus to town and showed the Christian Dior Spring 2019 couture collection under the big top. References to clowns, those happy-sad jesters of these traveling troupes, extended beyond the makeup to the clothes, some of which featured ruffs and harlequin patterns.
Both John Galliano and Bill Gaytten clowned around with jesters during their tenures at the house; but to fashion history buffs, the word circus conjures the collection Elsa Schiaparelli showed in 1938, which famously included jackets woven with plumed, dancing horses that closed with Jean Schlumberger–designed acrobat buttons. (Vogue dedicated a whole page of illustrations to the show, which also featured Surrealistic inkwell hats and a merry-go-round necklace, in the March 1, 1938, issue.)
Circuses have many dazzling sideshows, some of which Schiap referenced, but it’s the figure of Pierrot, the beruffed character onto whom it’s possible to project many emotions, that continues to fascinate designers and artists alike. Pablo Picasso and Jean-Antoine Watteau painted Pierrot. Karl Lagerfeld conjured him in pink satin in the 1980s. More recently, Jun Takahashi referenced Pierrot’s scarier relative at his Spring 2016 Undercover collection. These are dark times, after all.
The biannual show circuit feels like a circus to be sure. But neither Chiuri’s references nor recent ones to these traveling shows by Jeremy Scott and Vivienne Westwood feel insular. Rather, they seem to be speaking to the current climate of turmoil. Yes, we are living in a mad, mad world, but there’s still magic to be found—even if you have to go through contortions to find it.
