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Moschino

MILAN, June 25, 2007
By Tim Blanks
You can't put your arms around a memory, but Franco Moschino's torchbearers are doing their best. The late designer's iconoclastic inclinations have been logo-fied: Here, his once-ironic peace sign showed up as a zesty fluorescent orange detail on denim. In the spirit of the droll message T-shirts he pioneered, one model wore a top that read "Tall, dark and handsome" on the front, "Short, pale and ugly" on the back. A comment on the superficiality of fashion? Well, that would have been quite in keeping with Moschino's own bite-the-hand-that-feeds leanings, except that in this case, the kookiness was self-conscious. So were the bow ties, hardly ever a winning styling flourish in a fashion show (cf. the fluoro version that accessorized a sequin-trimmed tux). In fact, fluorescence was generally a little too omnipresent, lending the catwalk the feel of a hazmat extravaganza.

It's possible Moschino himself could have twisted such an element into a comment on the dangerous times in which we live, in the same way that he might have done more with the starred T-shirts with striped sleeves, or striped shirts with embroidered stars (here, they were merely a reminder of how much genuine grist this particular moment might have offered to Moschino's satirical mill). A more simpatico bet was the Warholian flower prints, because in his own way, Franco was a pop artist, too.

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