Courrèges. Resort 2020 - Paris

(Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the photographer/company where applicable:  Courrèges)

There is one fallen from grace photographer, who by his captivation of early 2000's sexualization relayed a style in fashion photography that was unprecedented at the time, with his quick use of digital snapshot cameras, pretty much lead into the more garish aspects of fashion photography from there onwards – more so of the naked fashion model.  It was by definition a Do-It-Your-Self style of photography with an impressive list high end clients and at the height of his fame, he was even able to score a contrived picture of the former President Barak Obama, with the photographer's hand down the ex-president's pants.  This infamous character is now disgraced with a slew of allegations of sexual misconduct, which if one was to look at the revealing story of his exploits, which were actually documented in a slick publication, there was complicity all round as he was a fashion insider.  It is what it is.  Except the difference is incomparable to the average Joe (or Jane) on the street with an eager resolve to be the next risqué fashion shooter, this disgraced and once icon of the stylized porn was actually a very good photographer. The impression that he left, is now widespread with at least three new magazines publications, various magazine editorials from time to time via high end magazines all partaking in the duplicated candidness.  Except for the high ads, that once dabbled in the techniques of candid sex appeal have since retracted any association, to which Tom Ford has recently expressed in an interview, that the libidinous representations of the last 20 years have been overridden by extreme political correctness.  But, hypocrisy and its veiled sensibilities make the greatest bedfellows.  No pun.

André Courrèges the famed and late French designer, who within the period of the 1960s created, although argued who developed its origin from two different famous designers of the time, the miniskirt.  Yet, his most poignant fashion invention for that period, in its release from 1950s conservatism, was the 'go go' boot.  It was all sex and from Courrèges perspective a futuristic version of it, a historic snapshot of an era that in so many ways has been overlooked with a lot of disinterest, maybe except for the cherry picked idealisms.  What has been inserted in replace of hunting the past for inspiration are the 50s, 80s and 90s. Yolander Zobel the new creative director for Courrèges has brought the brand up into a 90s stylization as a post 21st Century romanticism, although this is probably when the confusion really set in with wayward concepts of entrepreneurship and/or post sentiment that 'everyone can become a winner' concept that has spilled dramatically into a cultural discourse of the last 10 years.   To the point that Zobel even commented that she wishes to be liberated from the 60s “silhouette” reworking the brand to favor the blurred distinction of gender identity.   Except the reality is Zobel is simply chasing markets, which is fine and through her Resort 2020 collection, in its current vexation of digital trends, she had instilled that idea of 1990s nostalgic desires.  But, as mentioned, defined through what occurred years prior by post 90s hedonistic visuals, could be considered an adversary to that cultural shift in its apparent challenge to the norms of society.   It all ends up being the same.