FASHION — SUMMER 2022

Golden light illuminates a gentle rain with glowing rays: I enter this private mirage of renewal in my own memory. Recently, I found a path toward this tender atmosphere that lives and breathes eternally in Alexander McQueen’s spring 1998 show in Milan — where gauzy white silhouettes cling to bodies covered with rain and light.

There is so much strength in tapping into the ethereal plane; it is a space we notice but often wander away from, out of fear, or if you’re like me, out of existentialism. I am always tasting and sensing the angelic lightness of the ether, and fashion has this supernatural power of reminding me how limitless dressing oneself can be. McQueen has this pure and viscerally magic way of tuning reality to the frequency of the ethereal, and the surreal. In the second half of this show, we see the runway transform into a wet, amber-toned dreamscape. A glowing golden rain falls strong but gently, indoors, like a memory embedding itself into the present. The eternal image of rain becomes one with the ephemeral, physically here and now for you to experience these works of fashion — I feel this show embodies how deeply sensory experiences of fashion can serve as a portal to the sublime.

Every look undergoes an instant metamorphosis, where rain renews the clothing, forming new textures on the body, wetting the hair, melting away the makeup. The dark venue feels mysteriously part of nature, like a cave inside of McQueen’s mind.

I fell in love with so many of these beautifully streamlined, monochrome silhouettes which appear to be composed of silks and cottons — the blending of formal and casual, ancient and futuristic, minimal and layered pieces becomes a feast for our visual sense of touch. The pieces become part of each model’s body, like a soft armor, a cocoon they could each shed as they walked in the rain and light.

One powerful milestone I learned about from studying this show — 18-year-old Giselle Bunchden made her runway debut. The photographs of her, wet, glistening, with black makeup streaming down her cheeks made me stop and stare in total disbelief. What a powerful first walk, a beautifully vulnerable and emotive look to emerge into one’s runway career in. I was moved beyond words.

I learned from an article in Vogue France in 2018 that Giselle almost abandoned the show because she was afraid of walking her first show ever, topless.

The show’s makeup artist Val Garland intervened with genius to soothe her fears. Val painted her chest white, to look like a porcelain doll. She was still nude, revealed, but protected — she appears vulnerable, raw, so beautiful and ethereal. I always feel that art finds us precisely when we need to see it, and somehow this story and look completely embodies the sign of Cancer — emotive, ethereal, sensitized, she emerges into her own dream, wet with rain, her own tears, her own sweat.

Kate Moss also walks in a look from this iconic collection. I love the platinum wig, and how each model wears an asymmetrical haircut. It adds fragmentation and geometry to the intense softness and sensuality of the show.

We are now over halfway through 2022, and at the dawn of the watery, serene season of Cancer, where inward calm, softness, maternity, and connectivity literally reign over us. The new moon on June 28th brought deep inner peace, space to feel compassion and receive.

I am feeling the collective emotional sensory network reset to the frequency of the sublime, attuned to more delicate matters of the heart. Thank you, McQueen, for this mesmerizing work of art and fashion.

With love,

Jess