A.F. Vandevorst Spring Couture 2018 – Paris Fashion Week

 May 29, 2018

A.F. Vandevorst Spring Couture 2018 – Paris Fashion Week

 (Images from:   A.F Vandevorst’s 2018)

Since An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx first presented their original and very unique take on industrial/medical hospital fetishes, seen as their first Spring Summer show in 1999 with models been displayed on beds and the runway set up to be a hospital ward.  The ground breaking and stalwart uniqueness of the A.F Vandevorst brand continues on twenty years later.    With their 20th year anniversary show for Spring Couture 2018,  they’ve projected a mix of every runway show since 1999.  Which is of Vandevorst and Arickx’s eclectic and innovative projections which are undeniable, as is their exceptional styling.

In all of the cultural declines within the last twenty years,  it has been the plundering or directly copying the past for ideas as, on a sociological and psychological  level, popular culture and society remains trapped in a negative paradox, in which they cannot project or is in fear of a future.   When actually, a future doesn’t exist anyway.  To offset the fears of that inability to identify with a tomorrow.  Our plans and ideas should be set from the now.   The present.  Neither for a future and nor drawing from the past to recreate.  This is essentially the failure of schools and inflated academia, to push young people into an idealism of readily available ambitions.  That have already occurred.   So a plagiarized rehash or reboot is done in a quick succession.  Under the pretext everyone is going to make it.  Of course, when it comes to innovation, ideas and creativity.  Only a few will make it and it is hard work.  Reworking (or in most cases copying) the past, rather than using its underlying inspirations, it therefore becomes a quick fix for a concept, as mentioned, that had already happened.  As it is a habit which has now become ingrained into a broad perspective of popular culture.  The mainstream movie industry, with all its hypocrisy and ivory tower irrelevance, currently is the biggest culprit.

So what if you plunder your own past for ideas?  Rework previous pieces and have them displayed as a benchmark of 20 years of invocation and hard work.   Such is A.F Vandevorst’s Spring 2018 collection.  That would be a question that may not have a direct answer.  It maybe neither negative or a positive, in its display of  20 years of progression.

For all A.F Vandevorst’s complete collection filmed please refer to: https://vimeo.com/user10516974

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(A.Glass 2018)