[upbeat music]
- Paloma.
- Hi Chomey, how are you?
- I'm good, I'm good, how are you?
- I'm good you know,
I just wanted to congratulate you
on your iconic new appointment.
- [Chomey] Well thank you.
What have you been up to over there?
- I'm actually just looking at this amazing
curve moment at Versace.
Just feeling like things actually might be different.
- You looked amazing.
I only wish I could have been there.
I'm missing it a bit too.
- Yeah well, soon enough we'll get back together.
I actually have to run to a fitting right now.
But I just wanted to call and check in
and tell you that I love you.
- Thank you so much, bye.
- What's up and welcome back to Good Morning Vogue.
It's Paloma Elsesser
coming to you from a beautiful Italian villa.
Let's recap on what's happened in Milan so far.
Here's a look at Jeremy Scott's
wild ride of a show at Moschino.
[elegant orchestral music]
- The thing I always try to do with my shows
is create a whimsical environment
and transport us out of whatever was going on that day.
You kind of forget whatever hustle and bustle was happening,
and you just sit down in your seat and you're transported,
enveloped in this cacophony of tulle and flowers
and whatever it may be at that moment.
I thought about this and I wanted to really figure out
how I could capture what I do live,
in film.
How could I still give the audience that feeling?
I started working on it in lockdown
and I started thinking about
how I would present the collection
and how would we be together
and how would I show this and how would this work
and all these complex questions
that none of us had answers for.
And then I just felt like,
this collection could be so beautiful
if I showed it on marionettes.
I started thinking about theater de la mode
and thinking about another time period in fashion
where we had to use a stand in for a traditional model.
- [Narrator] The red dress making houses of Paris.
Undaunted by shortages of materials
have sent to the United States a miniature collection
of their latest styles.
- And then I thought, well if I created
models as marionettes and created a whole fashion show
and a whole world and could just transport everyone
to another place where we don't think about these problems
where we don't think about these heavy things
and just kind of have this whimsical fantasy moment.
- We got involved here at Jim Henson's creature shop
when Jeremy and his team contacted us
with the idea of doing a catwalk show with marionettes.
- I mean, they're the best.
And also I have a long history because I am
the first fashion designer ever to dress Miss Piggy.
[camera flashing]
And so I had worked with them
when I first moved to Los Angeles
and had a great relationship with them.
I'd been to the creature shop
and had seen all the technical skills
and all the magistery and magic that they make.
They were just the perfect people to go.
- We had some very good creative calls
with Jeremy and his team and we hit the ground running.
What we had to do was create
a marionette that looked stylish
but could also function as a marionette puppet,
particularly the way the legs would move
so that we could create something
that didn't look goofy or silly.
- They just blew me away when all of the pieces arrived here
and we started doing the fittings.
With the process of this, I started like a normal show
in the sense that a fitting we did
via Zoom with my team in Italy.
I created the board,
I styled all the bags where I would want them,
did the run of show so that we have everything encapsulated
exactly as it would be.
And then we needed to miniaturize it as well.
I had to be extremely precise.
You know, the size of the marionettes
were about 30 inches tall so they're not miniature
but they're far from human scale at the same time.
- [Peter] The first day where we tried on the,
the miniature versions of Jeremy's collection on the puppets
we were staggered by how exquisite
the miniature versions of the costumes were.
And these were made by his team in Italy.
- They are the same physicality, these marionettes.
I did different faces and features and tried to capture
different beauties and different hairstyles.
But you know, ultimately,
it's not the same energy that a human gives.
So I wanted to make sure
that it just always had a vibration.
- When the two things came together,
our puppets and these gorgeous costumes came together,
it was the spirit of creativity that I found
was really quite uplifting.
- It's probably the most
exclusive fashion show I've ever done.
I think there was about 14 audience members.
I wanted to think about some of the most emblematic people
in our industry and people that we all know,
love and admire.
Edward from British Vogue, Anna from American Vogue,
Haymish, Vanessa Friedman from New York times,
Anna Dello Russo, Angelica Chung from Vogue China.
There's moments where you have Vanessa
writing in her journal about, you know, a look
or you have Hamish whispering into Anna's ear,
a note about the bag that just walked by.
So I really wanted to kind of capture all of that
'cause I felt the audience was equally as important
in this film
because it really needed to give you the context
that you really are at a fashion show.
It was just amazing to have it finally coming alive
after months of preparation and sweat and tears
and thinking about it day and night.
The one thing I've learned is how much more difficult it is
to work with marionettes than it is to work with models.
And I do long to work with models again
because they are much less futzie
when you're trying to get a very beautiful walk out of them.
- It was such a unique show to be involved in
that it lifted our spirits quite considerably.
It was all about creativity.
- It's really sweet to be able to share it with everyone,
this film, because it's been such a labor of love
and a love story, and a love letter,
a love letter to fashion,
the power of fashion to be able to bring joy,
to put a smile on people's faces
to transport us someplace else.
And that's really what I was
trying to achieve with this film.
- Earlier this week,
GMV spoke with a group of black designers here in Italy
about their experiences in the fashion industry.
- Being black in Italy is very interesting.
I think when I first arrived here,
the one thing that I really noticed was that
if you were black, you were all working in fashion
or you were selling Prada bags on the street.
- What we would like to believe is that the fashion space
is a space that is diverse and integrated.
However, the fashion space in Italy
having such traditional value has been and is being kept
white for so long.
- We have a whole new generation of new Italian
which are from multicultural background.
And they're totally invisible, not only to the government
but also to the fashion industry.
Italy and made in Italy is about being white.
It's not like this anymore, things have changed
and the country is changing.
In the last Milan fashion week, I decided not to showcase.
It was about a request of social justice,
having more black, not only designer,
but all the professional figures
which can belong to the Italian fashion industry.
- I was just finishing school
so I was quite fresh and green, no luxury experience really.
But I ended up meeting with the then owners,
the Moltedo family in New York and about a month later,
I was flying to Vicenza
as the creative director of Bottega Veneta.
I remember a time at Bottega Veneta
at the end of the nineties, beginning of 2000,
let's say hip hop stars such as Lauren Hill
and Sean Combs were at the top of their game,
most houses weren't giving them invites.
They weren't giving them clothes to shoot.
I was connected to Lauren Hill
and we ended up dressing her for,
I think it was the Grammy's or something.
I've realized the power of celebrity
and a power of black celebrity, you know.
Still, Bottega Veneta at that time,
they were not necessarily interested
from the press perspective.
They didn't see a person of color as credit,
as gloss, as advantage to anything for them in the future
because they were just rappers you know,
and the game has changed so much today.
It started with the outside, it started with marketing.
The majority of companies now will not release a look book
or do a fashion show without having
an inclusive group of models that represent
what we think the world is like.
On the inside, we're very far away from that.
So it's very easy to push someone out front
and kind of hide internally within your companies
and know that you have no one
that really kind of represents any other part of the world.
- I think that black Italian creative
can bring so much to the fashion industry because
they have tradition, they have the fabrics, the color
and their own creativity.
I decided to create this platform to give the chance
to the voiceless because there were there,
but no one were seeing them.
This year, we are celebrating our fifth anniversary.
[speaking Italian]
asked a collaboration with us and the white Milana too,
asked us to do a collaboration.
- Today you can see five POC designer.
The first five POC designer that we will showcase
in the official schedule of Milan Fashion Week.
It's something historical to us,
but it's just the beginning.
- What I want to do and what me,
and Stella and Michelle want to do
is essentially propose options and opportunity
and question the system as it is right now.
We want a clear database of people of color
that are working in Italy, companies and corporations,
specifically talking about fashion that have
international consumers.
You know, we're speaking to the world,
we're not speaking to just Italy inside of this little box.
- There is a lot of hope,
especially with this new generation of people
who think differently.
Black and nonwhite Italians are demanding change.
Thankfully, with what Michelle and Edward
and Stella are doing in an effort to promote black talent
and black fashion in the Italian fashion landscape
is something that I think is very needed.
It's something that we have all been asking for
for a very, very, very long time.
It's helping to show the younger generation
and even the older generations
that there is a space in fashion for them.
- Systemically, the power structure,
in order for those things to be questioned,
people on the inside have to actually realize
that there is a problem
and many times they're not willing to admit
that there is a problem.
So when you tell someone that they need to represent,
they need to be more inclusive, they often back up.
There's fear in that question.
If they lost that fear, the fear of losing power,
the benefits are enormous.
I can imagine a clear future
where we don't have to think about what you are,
or what I am, we're in this together.
[funky upbeat music]
- So now for something completely different.
The Rick Owen show is one of the most
sought after invitations on the Paris fashion calendar.
This season however, Rick decided to switch it up
and show in Venice.
GMV has exclusive access to the making of this
very special moment.
- For the past 10 years, I've been coming to Venice
because it was the most magic place in a very banal world.
A world that is very predictable and very beige
and Venice is almost absurd.
I've been coming to this hotel, the Excelsior,
partly because of its legend.
It was the 1930's where it seemed to have its hay day.
Diagola died here in one of these rooms.
Nijinsky danced on the beach in front of this hotel.
So the fact that it's lasted so long,
it always struck a chord with me.
I like coming to retreating to Lido
which is actually 15 minutes by boat away.
I mean, I can see Venice from my back terrace.
There is a melancholy to the Lido
that I was always attracted to.
It's so isolated and it really,
it kind of reminds me of the little town that I grew up in.
I feel like I've kind of gone full circle
and gone back to Porterville when I come to Lido.
I guess I can be a little gloomy sometimes.
So living on this island,
it's very romantic and heady over here.
In a way that's such like a fundamental part of my life.
Having a show here,
just felt like the right thing to do right now.
It felt honest and it felt true and it felt sincere.
So after the quarantine,
it was never a consideration not to do anything.
It was just how.
What is the most reductive way we can do this?
We can just do it with our small Italian team,
just the core group.
And you know, the design room, it's just like five of us.
It felt like doing something at home.
It felt like putting on a play in the backyard,
but it's still spectacular.
[funky ominous music]
The name I assigned myself this season was Phlegethon,
one of the rivers in hell in Dante's Inferno.
It's on the outskirts of hell, it's on the way to hell.
And I thought that was kind of poetic
for the moment that we're in,
because what we're going through in the world
feels like a biblical period to me,
which brings us to thigh high boots.
We call them waders because you're in a river in hell
so you need waders.
I've always avoided over-sexualizing women in my shows.
I've always wanted to do things that were more tender
and more respectful.
There have been times where Michelle has told me
that I'm actually making women a little too stately.
When you're under threat, you want to lash out
and express your most extreme creative urges while you can.
I sense that a little bit in this collection.
And I sense probably, getting a little closer to sexuality
than I ordinarily might just because it seems
the opposite of self pity.
When I look at these clothes,
the way I kind of got so into these extreme shoulders,
I think it's about defiance.
I think it's about not power itself
because they're not subtle enough to be about power.
They're more exaggerated and flamboyant, I suppose.
You want to present an idealized image
but you want to be realistic
and acknowledge the contemporary world
and the world of we're all living it.
So I opted to use them, but then
there's something about masking women
that are parading clothes in front of you
that doesn't feel right either.
So at some point each model, if she feels comfortable,
can take the mask off and wear it around her arm.
Like we all do.
I think it's exciting to think
that fashion shows are threatened but I don't believe it.
I think adorning oneself is a primitive impulse
that has been with us from the beginning of time.
And people have wanted to display themselves
to each other forever.
So the formality of the fashion show might change
and it might evolve,
but there is a commercial risk and gamble
that is too fascinating to walk away from.
I mean, it's not just an indulgence, it's a business.
We want to be there, we want to witness it.
We want to see a mistake, we want to see a triumph.
I mean that's what makes a fashion show a fashion show.
- Next week, GMV goes to Paris
for the final week of fashion month.
We don't know what to expect,
so be sure to come back and find out.
[funky upbeat indie music]