Are Skulls the Trend That Will Not Die?
With his Spring '09 menswear collection, Alexander McQueen helped kick-start a trend for skulls and skeletons. (Ed Hardy and Christian Audigier kept skulls top of mind for those tracking a different fashion demographic.) And then, as with all gluts, it seemed that the moment had passed-we'd seen just one memento mori too many. Who needed to be reminded, after all?
But it looks like we called it too early. Bones are back, baby-and not just on scrawny models. (Hold the jokes and the harangues, please.) At the Couture shows, Riccardo Tisci was thinking of "a romantic way to see death"-hence the bone-shaped zipper pulls, the skeletal jewelry, a tiny skull nestled in the back of a satin jacket (right; check out our slideshow for a closer look). Jean Paul Gaultier was on the same page. He spoke of a bare-bones approach to couture, and then, the final look: Dita Von Teese in a barely-there corset resembling nothing so much as a glittering ribcage. For a gala of ghouls, you could pair it with Dsquared²'s spinal-column heels from Fall '10-or, for a little more coverage, one of the skull instarsia knits from Lucien Pellat-Finet, whom you might call the elder statesman of the trend. He's been playing with skulls for more than a decade.
At her Paris men's shows, Rei Kawakubo dedicated nearly her entire collection for Comme des Garçons to the theme. Skull-laden lads (with heads painted to suggest the craniums beneath) wore suits, shirts, shoes, and even dresses printed with the motif. And from the arena of pop-literally-Lady Gaga had her finger on the (undead) pulse last night for her first-ever show at Madison Square Garden. She donned a bone-fingered glove during one of her many costume changes.
Skeletons-back into the closet? Click here for our slideshow of bony looks.
By Matthew Schneier
Photo: Courtesy of Givenchy
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