via @jw_anderson
When outsider artist David Wojnarowicz put on a mask of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud in the late ‘70s and photographed himself around New York City, it highlighted the similarities between the malaise Wojnarowicz felt in society because of his troubled upbringing and gay identity, and the misfit status of Rimbaud, who lived in Paris almost a century earlier. Jonathan Anderson brought the same poets’ face back to France for his AW20 runway, mounted on stationary mannequins seated between audience members in the front row.
“I’ve always been very inspired by his work,” Anderson said of Wojnarowicz in a statement. “It could be very dark but I think there was still some optimism there. He had a political voice but not just for the sake of it. It was about creativity coming through a political voice.”
Courtesy of JW Anderson
Arthur Rimbaud in New York (1978–79) was not the only piece of Wonjarowicz’s Anderson incorporated into their fall collection; the artists’ untitled work (commonly referred to as Burning House) was knitted into sweaters that went on sale after the show to benefit VisualAIDS charity, which raises awareness and support for HIV+ artists. The stencil, which Wonjarowicz revisited multiple times throughout his work relates to the societal crises of his time.
“His use of blunt semiotics and graphic illustrations exposed what he felt the mainstream repressed: poverty, abuse of power, blind nationalism, greed, homophobia and the devastation of the AIDS epidemic,” Anderson said of the artist on Instagram. While we may be half a century away from the times Wonjarowicz was commenting on, a quick scroll through the news will show that many of these topics are just as relevant now as they were back then.
But like the artist, the designer also incorporated lighter, more optimistic elements into the fall collection, including the expansion of the cap bag into Jacquemus-like miniatures and oversized chain links on the loafers and belts.
Courtesy of JW Anderson