Vetements. Spring Ready-to-Wear 2023 - Paris Fashion Week
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Guram Gvasalia has returned to runway settings or at least his version of them, in this case an abandoned store in Paris, as a broken down, concrete structure which has been ear marked for demolition. Leaving off from his Fall 2022 array that was a digital lookbook, which played around with the concept of excess and exclusivity in all of its scarcity within Guram's Vetements template. One cannot deny the impact that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has had on the world, more so the fact that Guram is Georgian and knows too well the aggression that Russia has inflicted on his country of birth. With the satellite countries that border with Russia, now feeling an uneasiness at what could be an all-out-war Russia has committed to the Ukraine invasion. The issue of rising costs from oil, gas and wheat prices has now been exasperated by the conflict in Europe, the prospects of a severe reinfection wave of COVID is also a distinct possibility. Guram's antitheses fashion statements maybe more relevant than ever.
Vetements Spring 2023 retains that tailored affair to which Guram has tweaked as his stalwart aesthetic, however for his latest collection he has inserted a rawer and more intensified styling to the kitsch arrays, reminiscent of earlier Vetements collections. Showcasing a seriousness to the looks, to which Guram, rather than solely representing his antifashion statement, has drawn from cyber-punk stylization and bespoke doomsday visualizations to complete a 63 piece collection which also incorporates, towards the end of looks presented, a ghost like apparitions of that growing cult of appeal, as a reminder that the end times are upon us.
As I discussed in my Rick Owens Spring 2023 review. Does the celebrating the end, metaphorically, have to be completely a nihilistic idealism? Can it also represent a rebirth? A new beginning? Guram isn't trying to conceptualize a philosophy anymore than maintain Vetements exclusivity as a luxury brand. But, Guram's shrewdness as the Vetements creative director is also represented by his Eastern European background as child growing up in Georgia, the calamity that our word faces, in light of Ukraine under attack by Russia, could well and truly be the start of new Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
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