Deconstructed, reconstructed, preconstructed and just about any other take on “-structed” you could possibly formulate – that was the essence of G-Star’s AW 13 show last night at the St Agnes Kirche in Kreuzberg. The brand sent men and women down the catwalk in an eye-popping line of military-inspired denim outifts, which featured capes, puttees, jump suits and much more.
G-Star’s position these days is around the possibilities of raw (denim, that is): pulling its basics (jeans and jackets) apart and then re-formulating them into directional, utilitarian outfits, as if for postmodern fashion paramilitaries, engineers and aviators. It was quite a show, and was also accompanied by a transmission of the brand’s latest video spot, which shows a skeleton of a greyhound clad in a denim dog coat, sprinting through the air. However, the best was kept for last, when two models appeared on the runway with a comfy chair and side table, shortly followed by the actor Michael Madsen (known to most as Mr Blonde, the dancing psychopath character from Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”) who sat down, took a long breath and them solemly read out one of his poems, entitled “Change”. As if he wasn’t enough of a menacing presence already, Madsen wore a denim jacket garlanded by several knives, two dangling hand-axes and on his back a pair of machetes; then, he got up from his seat, stared at the floor for a few seconds, raised his head up and then let out a deafening roar (ie, “Rrrrrrrooooooooooaaaaaghhgghghhggghgh!!!”).
It could have been “raw” also. It probably was. That was the whole point of this entertaining and highly captivating spectacle. It was in itself something very raw, albeit in a highly constructed sense.