Viva Jeremy Scott! The Designer’s Retrospective Opens at the Dallas Contemporary

Viva Jeremy Scott! The Designer’s Retrospective Opens at the Dallas Retrospective

For most designers, the idea of a “career retrospective” would be daunting. Not so Jeremy Scott: When executive director of the Dallas Contemporary Peter Doroshenko approached him two years ago about the possibility of staging a show of his work, Scott was tickled by the idea. “I don’t think about it as a heavy thing,” says Scott, with typical aplomb, as he describes his attitude toward the exhibition “Viva Avant Garde: A Jeremy Scott Retrospective,” which opens to the public on Sunday. “I mean, I did a retrospective for my brand’s fifth anniversary,” he recalls. “I was like, let’s take a look at my first four collections. For me, it’s always nice to have a recap.”

Not that Scott hasn’t taken something away from the work that went into creating the show. Speaking from Dallas, where he was in the process of outfitting 100 or so mannequins in looks spanning his earliest collections through to those memorable ensembles he created at the start of his tenure at Moschino, Scott says that he’s noticed certain themes in his work that had previously eluded him. “When you’re mixing together about 20 years of stuff, you see things—understand things—you hadn’t before.” His overarching realization, he says, is of just how obsessed with color he’s been. “The clothes are so bright, there’s so much going on with them, it seemed like it would have been overkill to, like, make headdresses for the mannequins or something.”

Scott’s never been accused of being a minimalist, but in order to let his looks speak for themselves, he and set designer Thomas Thurnauer worked with the museum to devise a relatively stark presentation, featuring multilevel platforms and what Scott describes as “postmodern” columns. In keeping with Scott’s customary friendliness, the staging also features enclaves where visitors can sprawl out on beanbags and watch clips from his runway shows. On Saturday night, guests invited to the VIP launch event will get the opportunity to test-drive those beanbag chairs; everyone else has until March 17th, when the exhibition closes, to make themselves cozy and immerse themselves in the colorful, maximal world of Jeremy Scott.