A.F. Vandervorst. RTW Spring 2019 – Milan Fashion Week

 

(Images from Vogue.com and wwd.com and the public domain. All rights. Used in promotion of the designer.)

An Vandervorst and Filip Arickx of A.F Vandevorst, the avant-garde Belgium brand who, from the last twenty years, have maintained a solid focus with their styles and presentations.  Not swaying from their ideas and concentration in creating a unique fashion powerhouse. The two designers are also married to each other, so it would seem fitting that their Spring 2019 show plays a homage to the ritual of marriage in a society, like ours at the moment, which has embraced traditionalism and the associated rituals in earnest.  A secular take on the commitment of a man or woman or what ever dual combination (at the ire of the 'internet' culture war nonsense) one chooses. Nevertheless a strange embrace of 1950s conservatism, without the rigidness of monotheism, that is the union of two people that offers a decreed security portrayed from mostly Christian and Judaism beliefs - to profess that marriage is sacred.  Has gained a significant footing in, like I mentioned, a secular society that is grasping onto the past that it feels holds more certainty than a future, which has always been very uncertain. Such are the times that we live in.  However, despite the romanticism of marriage, it is more figurative in its brief appeal and ceremonial than anything else.  Thus the current trend. 

The cleverness of Vandervorst and Arickx is their ability to re-work and remodel styles to suit, in my opinion, paradoxical moments time. There is under their projection of their brand, a commentary, subtle, maybe more ambiguous than not.  Hence, critics, like myself, in a study of what is portrayed from fashion designers and their shows. We attempt to try and unravel aspects of design and the thoughts behind their creations.  Whilst admiring the aesthetics. 

Vintage wedding gowns and dresses re-cut and redesigned to offer a fragmented refection of past romanticism, yet, the collection feels liberating. Sexy and hedonistic. High boots and lots of flesh, skin tight leotards against the purity of white. Black to balance the duality of light and darkness, two opposites yet are the same. Ghostly styled makeup, with A.F Vandevorst's iconic red cross t-shirt graphic styles and hoddies, also noted are some of the floral prints. A collection that I feel asks the open question. Does marriage (as a symbolic gesture) really work? A question one has to ask as infidelity always lurks.  A lesson that certainly in life cannot be created, to what ever society we choose to follow. Even if a secular and/or atheistic society flirts with theocratic and monotheistic ritualism as a figure point of established norms. It usually offers no more than a distraction and feeling that one is choosing the right path.  Usually always at the peril of individualism.