EXCERPT: CHRISTOPHER KANE. PRE-FALL 2023

"...The hedonism of late 1970's has been played out numerous times by various fashion designers, in its romanticism of an era that truly did live by the Friday night disco and the subsequent one night stand.  And it was achieved under the real shadow of nuclear annihilation and a society that was also impacted with an energy crisis that lasted until the early 1980's.  The counter culture of the 1960's of revolution and change was replaced by living on that edge of a tomorrow that may never transpire.   It took over a decade later, going into the 1990's when the generation that came up after that tumultuous period, began to embrace the digital  age, which in turn imprinted wayward ambitions of grandeur.   As seemingly the Cold War had ended.  And it was the hope that technology in a globalised world could set us free, and we'd all become entrepreneurs.

Yet, the other sweet spot of hedonistic overture was the 80's, as a new counter culture began in earnest that being 'punk' as a necessary backlash of the hangover that was 60's hippies and the emergence of disco.   And it was these aesthetics of punk, in its modernist twist and rebellion against, ironically modernism, that so much has to be owed to the recently passed away dame of punk Vivienne Westwood.  Who showed how to develop the mix and match of stylizations, that incorporated bondage, latex and straps onto formal wear; to be the quintessential visual protest against both the hippie styles and a new found work ethic i.e the conservative looking 80's yuppie..."

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Full review: https://chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/01/christopher-kane-pre-fall-2023.html

(A.Glass 2023)