John Galliano: Art Deco revisited
When thinking about the Twenties and its allure, we think first about elegance and sobriety, defined shapes and volumes, details that are never excessive but always present, an almost maniacal order. The industrialisation of the time was taken up also by art and by fashion that expressed it in a very organised well defined way by marking the birth of Art Deco, an art movement that was never brazen and that managed to express the order of things. The lines and colours of nature were magically blended together in structured artworks with c never exaggerated colours and neat final results. From this blast from the past, Bill Gaytten, the creative director at John Galliano, borrowed shapes, volumes, definitions of space, which he admired and then reworked in the Autumn/Winter 2015 collection.
The references are sometimes obvious but other times are absolutely new, modern, bright. The combination of the John Galliano style and the didactic rigor of the Twenties seems almost an oxymoron but when thinking back to the legendary flappers and the futuristic push of that time, it is easy to understand how Bill Gaytten noticed its dramatic potential. Crossovers of lines and materials trace a path that takes us from the mythical beginning of the nineteenth century to a roaring 2015. Sweet heels for shoes with elegant suede bows on the side alongside ankle boots with vertiginous wedges, aggressive stiletto heels, woven leather boots.
The theatricality that leaves room for the purest Art Deco ordered constructions is reinterpreted in accessories and clothes with a very contemporary look. Shiny lacquer and inlaid wood typical of that time are found in the leather and patent concavities of the accessories that bring back the extreme elegance of the Twenties in a new version at times even aggressive. Colours play with each other in tonal mixes through the different nuances that creates the same gradation according to the material or are divided by strong contrasts, almost in a game of opposites. Straps are the accent that had to be in the collection, as if to recall a John Galliano from past seasons who liked to create unexpected situations. Macro or all-over prints for an Autumn/Winter collection to be gazed at for the whole season.
