From the Chiasmus archive: April 17th, 2020. "BORIS BIDJAN SABERI. FALL 2020/2021 - BARCELONA FASHION WEEK."

(Images Boris Bidjan Saberi 2020)

Boris Bidjan Saberi held his retrospection show at Barcelona Fashion Week on the 4th February 2020 at the Recinte Modernista de Sant pau museum in Barcelona, a beautifully designed Art Nouveau building that was built in 1905 continuing its construction up to 1930, which ironically was a hospital built to care for the sick.  As most of the fashion shows for 2020 went ahead despite China locking down their international trade hub Wuhan city in January 2020, although late in the day, when the Covid-19 virus had already wreaked havoc within the region of Hubei in mainland China.  The problem was of course, that the Wuhan trade route with the main cities and companies of Europe, continued right up till the Wuhan lock down – and when cases began appearing in Milan, Barcelona and Paris, it wasn't until late February that Europe realized that the Covid-19 infection rate had become an alarming figure, they began to lock down their own borders and economies.  With some of the bigger fashion shows later in the February calendar had no audience at all, some however early on, before the 11th hour order, had their audiences very much crammed into their show pieces.  There is a lesson here, but a hard one, that clinging onto trade while having an over reliance on economics may have exasperated the pandemic more than not.  To which not just China, but all the global economies maybe at fault.  Still, the show does go on, but it won't be the same as it once was. 

Saberi, born in Munich, Germany in 1978, is a newcomer to the fashion world.  Which seems fitting that he has staged a retrospection show in Barcelona, as he gradated from studying fashion from the Spanish capital in 2006, launching his signature label in 2007 and basing its operations in the famed city.  Hosting most of his shows at the Paris Fashion Weeks, yet for the Fall 2020 men's collection, Saberi did not show at Paris, except for a small studio collection – rather he focused on Barcelona fashion week to reveal the 2020 retrospection, which included all of his select pieces from the last years of designs and runway shows.  

The drapey avant-garde, urban goth styles maybe falling slightly out of fashion.  However the artisan appeal, to which the styles represent, will remain.  From the early 2000s to its peak in 2017, the many smaller brands that stylized the urban so called dystopia wears kept an exclusivity for their fan base.  With very limited collections, sourced from rare, hard to fine materials which in turn are hand crafted as an artistry of fashion design, that also kept the price tags very much in the upper ranges.  Saberi, who started off working as a designer at Levis, steered his devised avant-garde styles into a direction of production rather than a reduced array of exclusivity, yet, at the same time keeping the quality as the brand's exceptional benchmark. 

I have been reviewing Saberi's shows since 2013 and have always been impressed with his crossover into science fiction costume design but as a functionality of urban styles.  All noted is his ability to master the materials he uses, which are predominately distressed leather, linen and wools as layered pieces for most of his collections.  Keeping his brand distinct under the signature label, Saberi has also attached 11 by BBS as a readily available street wear collection, inspired by numerical significance of “11” (he was born on the date 11th September 78').  In 2017, Saberi collaborated with the mountaineering and sports shoe company Solomon to create a range of footwear.  

The show notes for Saberi's Barcelona retrospection, set the dates at 2020 and 2021, as forward seasons in a futures buyers market.  And when one looks back at these avant-garde, dystopia, gothic urban concepts of fashion, one cannot deny that this pandemic that has recently swept through the world, has revealed, within its festering decrement of trade and economies, something to all of us we have never witnessed before.  Apart from the speed and ferocity of the Covid-19 virus, that, despite the leaders of the world frantically trying to return back up to what may be familiar territory.  It has changed our society and what lies ahead ahead of us, that no one, not even in the realms of design, fashion or story telling will be able to foresee. 

 Thus, we truly live from past to present. 

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(A.Glass 2020)