#actually do you think there’s a sweater that does the diamond/triangle back thing. no that’s too much

[eruditetyro]

not me browsing ravelry like do You think that maybe i could find a sweater pattern that looks kind of sharp. like you know. like emma d’arcy’s character picking up a sword and the girl in the room with her saying it suits her. but i think that’s a lot to ask from a sweater pattern

[sohotthateveryonedied]

Gender? In THIS Economy?

Read here on AO3!

Summary:

Duke is questioning stuff and goes to Tim for advice. (feat. trans!Tim and nonbinary!Duke)

“Here you go. One Batburger with extra pickles, extra onions, and extra extra mayonnaise.” Duke drops the paper takeout bag unceremoniously into Tim’s lap. “Your taste buds need a tune-up, bro.”

Tim unwraps his burger and takes a bite. Batburger may be questionable when it comes to copyright laws, but damn if they don’t pile on the condiments better than any fast food restaurant in Gotham. “Sounds to me like you simply haven’t reached the sky-scraping level of enlightenment that I have, grasshopper.”

“Enlightenment would have been going to Red Robin and using your uniform to get a discount,” Duke says. He sits beside Tim on the rooftop’s edge, their legs dangling side by side a hundred feet above Gotham’s plunging gray streets. He digs into his own burger and makes a face. “Enlightenment would also be getting the Robin Nuggets next time. This tastes like dried leather.”

“I like it,” Tim says with a shrug. “It has personality.”

“So does raw sewage, but you don’t see me eating that.”

Tim concedes the point. His communicator buzzes in his belt. He checks the screen and discovers an alert from Cass composed entirely of clown emojis and red harlequin diamonds.

Duke notices. “Should we get that?”

Tim pockets the communicator. “Nah, Spoiler’s got it. We have time to relax.” And he’s not about to pass up quality time with the one little brother who doesn’t hate him. It’s hard enough as it is for Tim and Duke to find the time, what with them being on opposite sleeping schedules and work snatching their attention away with grabby, toddler-sized hands.

“Don’t get a lot of that during the day shift,” Duke says. “Every time an alarm goes off, it’s my business.”

Tim knocks him in the side with his elbow. “That’s what you get for turning to the light side instead of kicking it in the shadows with us. More employees to go around.” He sips his soda for a moment. “Why did you come out tonight, anyway? I thought you stayed in on weeknights.”

“Right. I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” Duke says it carefully, like he’s testing the waters. “I need advice.”

Tim has to admit that his chest puffs out a little at that. It’s not often people come to him for advice when Dick and Barbara are right there, all full of adult wisdom that Tim is too pitifully shrimpy to possess. “What’s up?”

“It’s kind of...personal.”

“Yes, Bruce does have special powder for suit-chafing. It’s in the cabinet under the first-aid supplies.”

“It’s not that,” Duke says, though he snorts in half-hearted laughter. He looks down at his hands like he’s dreading the words lodged in his throat. “What was it like, realizing you were a dude?”

One of Tim’s eyebrows shoots up. “Oh.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s an invasive question.”

“No, no, it’s fine. You just caught me off guard, is all.” It’s not like this is the first time someone has asked. Tim used to be uncomfortable talking about it, but he’s grown up since then. Talking about his trans journey is as normal as talking about what he did yesterday. He eats a fry. “What do you want to know?”

Duke searches Tim’s face for a sign that he’s lying, that he should back off. When he doesn’t find one, he asks, “How old were you when you figured it out?”

Tim thinks back. “Nine, I think? But even before that, it’s not like I ever really felt like a girl. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t know what. When I first heard about what being transgender meant, everything I’d been feeling until then clicked into place.”

“What was it like?” Duke asks, “growing up the way you did? Presenting as a girl when you knew you weren’t?”

Tim shrugs. “I don’t know. It was life at the time. I dealt with it.”

“Was it hard? Pretending to be something you weren’t?”

Tim doesn’t know what answer Duke is looking for, or why he’s so interested, but he won’t ask. “My parents always had this idea of me being the perfect daughter, all obedient and graceful and crap. I’m pretty sure their hope was to eventually marry me off to the highest bidder so they could reap the business benefits.”

“That sounds awful.”

Tim shrugs again. “I didn’t start feeling any different than I should have until around six or seven. I was always a tomboy. I liked doing boy stuff and playing sports, but my parents thought it was a phase I would grow out of. They’d make me wear dresses and go to fancy parties with them, all the while I just wanted to claw my skin off and go home.”

He remembers the nights he would lie awake in bed, imagining what it must be like to have been born someone else. Anyone else. To grow up as a little boy who was allowed to run around, to get dirty, to be himself instead of following some arbitrary guidelines someone else drew up the day he was born. He imagined what it would feel like to answer to a different name than the one he’d been given, which grated on his ears the longer time went on, like an itchy sweater he couldn’t shed. It was hell.

He gives Duke a sly grin. “But the upside of having absent parents is that there aren’t as many people watching you. No one cared if I went to school in the boy’s uniform instead of the girl’s. No one was there to stop me from cutting my hair short the way I wanted it.”

Duke's eyes widen. “You cut your own hair?”

“It went exactly the way you’re thinking. I had to go to the barber the next day and have them fix it because it was so uneven. But by the end of the day, it was the way I always imagined it. I was finally starting to look like the person I wanted to be.”

Duke stares intently at the remains of his burger as if the universe’s answers to an unspoken question were written in sesame seeds. “Did it get better after that? Did you feel...at peace?”

“‘Course not. The world wasn’t magically fixed just because I took a step in the right direction. My problems didn’t go away.” When he says that, Duke looks almost...disappointed? “But,” Tim adds, “it was better than it was before. I still had to act for my parents and the rest of the world, but I didn’t have to hide from myself anymore.”

“How did your parents react when they found out?”

Tim grimaces. “They...didn’t take it well.” He can still hear his father’s voice in his memories, bringing up therapy and camps and whatever places he could think of that would “fix” his little girl.

“But, after a while,” Tim continues, “it was clear that I wasn’t going to change my mind anytime soon. I guess they figured it would be easier to go along with it than fight me every step of the way. They still didn’t like it, but they tolerated it.”

Duke is quiet.

“Why do you ask?” Tim prods.

Duke’s expression doesn’t give anything away. It’s nights like this when Tim can see how perfectly Duke fits into this mental institution they call a family. For all that Duke thrives in the light, he keeps his cards just as close to his chest as the rest of them. He gives Tim a half-smile. “Just wondering.”

“Okay.”

They fall into weighted silence, the scales tipping on either side of their post, but never settling. Tim waits. He finishes his burger and busies himself with reorganizing the pouches in his belt, giving Duke the privacy to think.

“I don’t know,” Duke starts after several minutes, “if I’m a boy.” He looks at Tim. “I think I might be something else.”

“Okay,” Tim says calmly. “What do you feel like?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve always felt different, y’know? When I was a kid, it was because I was smarter than everyone in my class. And it was fine, because I knew what it was and how it worked and why it was a good thing, being the smart one. It made sense. Time went on, the other kids started catching up, but that mismatched feeling never went away. I never felt right in my skin.”

Duke’s face rises to the dark clouds, the Batsignal shining from the top of the police station like a holy beacon. “Then I met Batman. My powers started to come in and everything clicked into place, all at once. That was why I never felt like I fit in with everyone else, because I was different. I had powers. That must have been it.”

“But it wasn’t,” Tim guesses.

Duke shakes his head. “I thought it would be. I mean, what else could it have been, you know? It should have explained why I never felt at home in my identity. But time goes on, I learn how to use my powers, and it fixes some of it, but not everything. There’s still part of me that looks in the mirror and sees something off. Some detail out of place.”

“Do you feel like a girl?” Tim ventures to ask.

Duke folds over the corner of his straw wrapper again and again in tiny triangles. “Nah, I doubt it. I like some feminine things, but I don’t think I’m a girl. Or a guy. I think...I might be nonbinary?”

Tim does his best to channel Bruce’s “supportive dad” energy and smiles. “Okay. What pronouns do you want to use?”

“They/them, maybe? For a while?”

“Duly noted.” He puts a hand on Duke’s shoulder. “I really do appreciate you telling me.”

Duke rubs the back of their neck, their cheeks flushing. “It feels good to say out loud. Not just in my head.”

“Do you think you’re going to tell anyone else? You don’t have to if you’re not ready, but our whole family will support you.”

“Yeah.” Duke picks at their nails, nodding absently. “I know they will. I’m not worried about that.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

Duke takes a deep breath in, and Tim is reminded of a balloon close to bursting. “My parents aren’t dead. I’m going to get them back. And when I do...what are they going to think when they wake up after half a decade and find out that their son isn’t their son anymore? What if they don’t like the person they see?”

Tim can’t say that he hadn’t swum with the same thoughts years ago, back when the person who is Tim Drake was still on the drawing board. But there’s a difference between his situation and Duke’s. “Your parents love you, Duke. They’re not going to stop loving you just because you’ve grown up since they last saw you.”

“What if it’s too much? The superpowers and the crime-fighting and the new gender...it’s a lot to take in.”

“Well, sure,” Tim says. “It might take some time for them to get used to it, but this is who you are. They’re going to love it just as much as they love the rest of you.”

Duke smiles, and if their eyes are a little misty, Tim pretends not to notice.

“Besides,” he says. “If I were you, I’d just lead with the superpowers thing. Anything after that sounds perfectly acceptable.”

[insomnihan]

han’s Entire Thoughts and Feelings on Dreamcatcher’s “Boca”

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there are no read mores here so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALRIGHT SO-

THE SONG HAD THE F UCKING NERVE THE AUDACITY THE GUMPTION AND THE GALL TO BE AS BOMB AS IT IS literally the moment i heard that rain and thunder i was f cukity F CIKED the way that they just know how to work with more gentle verse parts and theN PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE WITH THE CHORUS ITSELF SPEAKING OF THE CHORUS ITS F UCKING CRAZY??????????? THAT????????? GODDAMN GUITAR????????????? OWNS MY ASS??????????? OH MY F UCKING GOD JUST THE WAY GAHYEON STARTS IT OFF TO EASE US INTO IT HMMMMMMMMMM- THE ABSOLUTE POWER IN DAMIS FIRST RAP........... SHES SICK™ FOR THAT!!!!!! ‘HOLD UP’ YEAH HOLD UP I WASNT READY DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!! THEN DAMIS AND GAHYEONS RAPS IN THE SECOND VERSE YOU CANT EXPECT TO BE OKAY AFTER THAT™ ARE YOU SERIOUS- just all of their voices............ the way theyre just so powerful and emotional and you can tell............. siyeon pls your high notes holy f uck-

WHAT IM SAYING Is this song was such a good follow up to scream like F UCK i literally ask after every comeback ‘will they top this’ and tHEN THEY DO

i was so boo boo the fool like i really thought since diamond and breaking out fell into the same genre that it wouldnt be intense like This im 🤡

SO I WILL BE USING THE COMEBACK SHOWCASE TO TALK ABOUT THE DANCE BC OH MY GOD- so they all said that this song was their hardest dance yet................. queens of dance I F UCJUNG SWEAR

FIRST OF ALL THE BEGINNING POSE IS EVERYTHING™

THE PART AFTER THAT WITH DAMI PULLING YOOHYEON INTO HER SINGING PART....................... i just like it a lot

HONESTLY DAMIS ENTIRE PART

YOOHYEONS PART BEFORE THE CHORUS

THE ACTUAL CHORUS

both the upside down triangle hand symbol AND then for ‘boca’ where they make their hands like a mouth................... Iconic™

GAHYEON WITH THE FLAGS?????????? HELLO????????

and then dami................................. i-

the flags............... sua and jiu and yoohyeon.......... Thinking A Lot™

this part with jius bridge lives rent free in my brain

sua sitting on the dancers shoulders and singing the most hard hitting lyrics in the song thats it thats the bullet point

just................. the WHOLE ENDING

shouldve really just put the entire damn video here but i already wrote it out

THEY NEVER PLAY AROUND WITH THE VISUALS EVER!!!!!!!!!!! THE COLORS ARE ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS AND VIBRANT THE SETS ARE SO DREAMLIKE???????? I WISH I CAN FULLY EXPLAIN IT BUT ALL I COULD REALLY DO IS DESCRIBE THEM AS THEY ARE- THE PINK SET THEY DANCE IN IS SO COOL TO ME THE PLACE WITH THE TREES AND GRASS AND THEYRE DANCING IN THE F UCKING WATER AND WHERE GAHYEON HURTED US WITH HER RAP AND WHEN THEYRE ALL JUST STANDING AROUND LIKE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESSES AND WHERE YOOHYEON SAT AMAZINGLY- AND WHERE SIYEON STANDS WITH ALL THE BUSTS WITH TAPE OVER THEIR MOUTHS THE SYMBOLISM™!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEN WHEREVER DAMI WAS IN GENERAL.................. [REST]

TIME TO SHOW WHICH SCENES I LIKED

THE WHOLE F UCKING THING MOVING ON-

T H E M

okay................................ everyone who follows me KNOWS that im just so whipped for all these women if i was a Brave Bicth™ id tell them they were all beautiful every day to their faces but if this is your first time seeing this CHAOTIC AS F UCK series of posts then-

LOOKATTHEMBEINGBEAUTIFULANDETHEREALPRINCESSESINONESCENETHENBADBITCHESINTHENEXTAREYOUKIDDINGMEICANTBELIEVETHEYREALLYOUTHERELOOKINGLIKETHIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JIU

BELLE????????????? BELLE IS THAT YOU???????????? why does Miss JiU over here just got to be one of the most beautiful women in the GODDAMN UNIVERSE I CANT STAND THIS LOOK AT THIS PICTURE!!!!!! i wont lie to yall but it was gonna be this one or the one kinda at the beginning where shes wearing red..................... and....................... her neck- THE RED IS FIRE BY THE WAY AND THE SAME OUTFIT BUT IN LIKE R.o.S.E BLUE WITH THE CHAIN STEP ON ME- and the black one that we dont really see a lot of.................. the sheer of it............ bicth-

SUA

yes it was absolutely necessary for me to use this shot

OFC MY BICTH ASS NEARLY FELL OFF HIS F CUKING BED WHEN SHE SHOWED UP IN THE TEASER JUST COVERED IN WATER I SWEAR I COULDNT BREATHE FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! first of all the red and blue ones just one sleeve and those shorts and all those belts I DUNNO JUST THIS WOMAN AND CROP TOPS OKAY IM LOSING IT IM THIS 👌 CLOSE and then the white dress i cant stand her i really cant-

SIYEON

HOOOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO MISS LEE SIYEON OUT FOR MY NECK I SEE- i just wanna point out first that i love her love for pants like the rest of the outfits are gonna be worn for performing and they all have those baggy pants she loves so much pls shes everything im 🥺🥺🥺 tho the braids and the high ponytail without and yknow what WITH BANGS TOO im........................ i cant stop staring at this picture-

YOOHYEON

SHE IS NOW A LARGE AND SCARY DOG-

this specific hairstyle in the screenshot........ the braids the safety pins with the brown and pink or whatever it was like three different colors just the Serve™ she is serving in that with that outfit and the back of her skirt is long than the front im weak in the knees for you maam- oH THAT F UCKING RED ONE GRABBED MY NECK NAILS INTO MY SKIN AND ALL AND ENDED ME HONESTLY and that chain necklace.......................... keeping words to myself-

DAMI

SHES SO HOT AND FOR WHAT my god this blue hair she is WORKING IT- i had such a difficult time even finding a good screenshot of her and i know the moment i just decided with this one that i was just gonna keep getting distracted by it and i am rn as i type this GOD- the all black outfit she shows up in the very first time in the mv..................... [REST] the blue one with the thing on her thigh with the low ponytail................. [REST x2] herself....................... [D*AD]

GAHYEON

POPULAR OPINION: THIS IS HER ERA

THE MOMENT SHE JUST SHOWS UP RIGHT AT THE START SHE GRABBED US BY THE NECKS AND LET US KNOW SHES KILLING IT LIKE THIS this pink hair is doing her like two million favors like the space bun look right here???????? STUNNING just left long and straight??????? BEAUTIFUL the fit with the beige(?) sweater and skirt and that black outfit during her rap verse the pink dress iM D*AD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BONUS TIME: B-SIDE TRACKS (short thoughts and parts i liked)

Intro

A SLAPPER WE LOVE TO HEAR IT-

Break the Wall

oH BICTH the way this song took me back to my edgy middle school years listening to music like this MY GOD THEIR VOICES SOUND SO COOL ON IT like they were using megaphones and s hit THE CHORUS IS SO GOOD IM GOING FERAL™ I FEEL LIKE I CAN CONQUER THE WORLD WITH THIS-

Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind

ALL ENGLISH SONG BICTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its all about the yearning its so catchy and good i was literally already singing it randomly right after the highlight medley like honestly this and break the wall are so nostalgic highkey- their pronunciation is so so SO good!!!!

Dear

JIUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭 IM SO SOFT DONT LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she wrote this herself and its just so full of love and thankfulness and gratefulness and appreciation for insomnias SOMEONE PROTECT HER- and then the rest of the members singing so gently and beautifully there are real tears in my eyes...............

LIKE im just gonna say it every comeback now i guess THEY👏NEVER👏DISAPPOINT👏EVER👏 i love being an insomnia so much yknow??? love them as people love them for always providing content and always showing that they love and appreciate their fans and how they always make me laugh and feel better and most importantly of all is THEIR MUSIC not implying anything with capitalizing and bolding that............... unless they are so incredibly talented and show how versatile they are in so many different genres AND THEYVE GROWN SO MUCH IN POPULARITY THIS YEAR AND ARE NOW BEATING THEIR OWN GOALS im so happy to be their fan 😊😊😊 this just became a paragraph of me and how much i love them ANYWAY-

IN CONCLUSION: WHERE IS THE LOVE?????????? ITS BEING DIRECTED AT THIS ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and AS TRADITION:

[mastcomm]

What Do You Wear to the End of Days?

LONDON — In 1139 Archbishop Malachy of Armagh supposedly had a vision of the future that became known as the “prophesy of popes.” In it, the Irish saint predicted the names of 112 pontiffs who would rule until the end of days. Though it was later shown to be a 16th-century forgery, the second to last pope on the list was Benedict, which has suggested to some in the Roman Catholic world that the final pope could be the current pope, and the apocalypse is nigh.

Actually, not just the Catholic world but, apparently, the fashion world, too.

Over the weekend, Simone Rocha put the idea front and center on a dress. It was lovely — royal purple splashed with a gold scripted rendering of the saint’s name, draped in swathes of black satin — and it was sandwiched between piles of baptismal lace and tulle; watery fisherman knits and oyster satin slithers; elaborately embroidered cross-topped sacred hearts: the semiology of prayer, loss and rebirth. And it was not happenstance.

Brexit has finally been approved. Storm Dennis, officially classified as a “weather bomb,” was lashing Britain as the shows began, flooding roads and wreaking havoc. A designer here could be forgiven for thinking it’s the end of days. It’s definitely the end of something. The issue for everyone is what comes next.

“Of course I’m worried,” said Molly Goddard after her show of tulle extravaganzas mixed with chunky Fair Isle knits and nerdy-cool tailoring that was an ode to her youth in the late 1990s around London’s Portobello Market. “I’m worried about the people in my factories, most of whom aren’t English, even though the factories are nearby.”

That’s to be expected. As was the existential questioning of identity that was an underlying current in so many of the clothes here: What does it mean to be British? What content do these symbols we put on our backs contain any more?

What was less predictable was where such thinking led some designers: not to the depths of despair, but somewhere else entirely. To a world after doomsday. To renewal, and reinvention.

Could cynicism be out of fashion? What an idea.

Identity and Its Discontents

But first, there was a lot of black. A lot of big, swaddling volumes. A lot of covert messaging and a lot of wrestling — some good, some weighed down with angst — with the past. For some: a lot of royal sleevage. For others: argyle, houndstooth, tweed.

Victoria Beckham belted her curving black sheaths and neatly tailored culotte-suits with hands-across-the-hips silver and cut diamond-shaped holes into her sweater vests like a remembrance of things lost. Emilia Wickstead offered big puffed sleeves and even bigger skirts; Roksanda, a safe space of billowing, shimmering drapes of many colors and chunky, patchwork-nation knits.

At Burberry, the chief creative officer, Riccardo Tisci, named his collection “Memories:” of the brand itself, but also of London, when he was a fashion student, living in the Bethnal Green neighborhood, and of his trips to India, where he started his own label; of the melting pot of the capital and the designer mind. That meant — checks! And trench coats! Lots of them with feathers and faux furs, deconstructed into parts and twisted into sari-like assemblages; mixed and matched and also madras for men and women; leopard and contrasting linings thrown in.

Also the occasional big star plastered on the front of a shirt, and a festival’s worth of rugby stripes in cinnamon and turmeric, as if for a game of Quidditch in Mumbai. Also some go-go silver fringe, for evening. Also a lot of green (afterward Burberry announced the show had been certified carbon neutral and that it was creating what it called “a regeneration fund” to support carbon insetting in its supply chain).

If that sounds like it is skating across the surface — not the environmental initiatives, which are laudable, but the fashion interpretations of the national totems — that’s also how it looked: polished, easy to wear, but lacking depth and soul. Which is odd, because Mr. Tisci is nothing if not an emotional designer, and it often takes an outsider (he’s Italian) to really grapple with a country’s imagery. It’s as if he is deliberately denaturing himself to appeal to as many people as possible; going not with his gut, but with his market research.

Of Risk and Reward

In any case, it still made more sense than Tommy Hilfiger’s #TommyNow celebration of Americana, inclusivity and his celebrity connections in stars, stripes, anchors aweigh, neon and slogans — “Just Rise;” “Still Human;” “Loyalty” — via collaborations with the singer H.E.R. and the Formula One star Lewis Hamilton. The effect was of a semi-party in a place that isn’t really in the mood to party any more (and that has increasingly mixed feelings about the “special relationship” between itself and its former colony anyway). The message was meaningful, but the medium confused.

Mr. Hilfiger has never been a thinking person’s designer. That is absolutely fine; not all clothes need a philosophical grounding (that would be exhausting). But a little sensitivity to context and timing is no bad thing.

British fashion — London fashion — has always had an identity more rooted in risk-taking creativity than in page-view calculation and hashtags.

In the willingness, for example, of Hussein Chalayan to not just double down on the idea of a suit and turn a pair of trousers into a cardigan for his Chalayan show, so the legs wrap the shoulders and the hips shadow the back, but to dare to write and sing his own songs, live, as an accompaniment (that’s putting yourself out there). In the explosive romance of Richard Quinn’s Buckingham Palace-size florals and empire drapes; the pointed extravagance of his nod to Pearly Kings and Queens, the cockney performers with mother-of-pearl studded costumes. In a sense of history, and the gumption to turn it on its head.

Historical Revisionism

Which is why it was so striking to see the connections between the 1920s and the 2020s being drawn at Erdem, with his Cecil Beaton-inspired checkerboards and bias frills; his Erté feathers and lamé Wedgewood-print puffers; his flapper dresses dripping loops of pearls. At Christopher Kane, where things took a turn for the sexually subversive (he called his show “Naturotica’) in more Art Deco geometries. Meant, apparently, to reference the love triangle of Adam, Eve and the serpent, and followed by lacy lingerie slips, strait-laced shirt dresses with sheer mesh tops and chain mail apple-red skirts slit to mid-hip on either side.

And at JW Anderson, where in a terrific collection Jonathan Anderson reached across the century to mix the classic with the couture with the sci-fi to create something viscerally, elegantly modern.

“I was thinking about that moment in the ’20s when everything resurged and rebounded,” he said backstage after the show, which he dubbed “nouveau chic.”

So he took heritage swing coats in camel and wool and blew them up to “optimistic volumes,” adding giant swaddling leather collars; crushed fantasy beer-can-print lamé into shift dresses; crafted sleeveless metallic bubble gowns out of fringed metallic knits to mimic a very glamorous Snuffleupagus; and topped the shoulders of flowing flannel capes, curvaceous tweed coats and silver screen siren gowns with fronds of pearly cellophane that wafted gently in the wind.

It is possible, of course, to question whether the 1920s — the years between the wars — is actually the best harbinger for fashion to embrace. They may have represented a great creative flowering, a burst of energy and social revolution, but they did not exactly end well. On the other hand, you can’t argue with the fact that if, indeed, the four horsemen are coming, at least this way we can greet them with aplomb.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/life-style/what-do-you-wear-to-the-end-of-days-2/

[mastcomm]

What Do You Wear to the End of Days?

LONDON — In 1139 Archbishop Malachy of Armagh supposedly had a vision of the future that became known as the “prophesy of popes.” In it, the Irish saint predicted the names of 112 pontiffs who would rule until the end of days. Though it was later shown to be a 16th-century forgery, the second to last pope on the list was Benedict, which has suggested to some in the Roman Catholic world that the final pope could be the current pope, and the apocalypse is nigh.

Actually, not just the Catholic world but, apparently, the fashion world, too.

Over the weekend, Simone Rocha put the idea front and center on a dress. It was lovely — royal purple splashed with a gold scripted rendering of the saint’s name, draped in swathes of black satin — and it was sandwiched between piles of baptismal lace and tulle; watery fisherman knits and oyster satin slithers; elaborately embroidered cross-topped sacred hearts: the semiology of prayer, loss and rebirth. And it was not happenstance.

Brexit has finally been approved. Storm Dennis, officially classified as a “weather bomb,” was lashing Britain as the shows began, flooding roads and wreaking havoc. A designer here could be forgiven for thinking it’s the end of days. It’s definitely the end of something. The issue for everyone is what comes next.

“Of course I’m worried,” said Molly Goddard after her show of tulle extravaganzas mixed with chunky Fair Isle knits and nerdy-cool tailoring that was an ode to her youth in the late 1990s around London’s Portobello Market. “I’m worried about the people in my factories, most of whom aren’t English, even though the factories are nearby.”

That’s to be expected. As was the existential questioning of identity that was an underlying current in so many of the clothes here: What does it mean to be British? What content do these symbols we put on our backs contain any more?

What was less predictable was where such thinking led some designers: not to the depths of despair, but somewhere else entirely. To a world after doomsday. To renewal, and reinvention.

Could cynicism be out of fashion? What an idea.

Identity and Its Discontents

But first, there was a lot of black. A lot of big, swaddling volumes. A lot of covert messaging and a lot of wrestling — some good, some weighed down with angst — with the past. For some: a lot of royal sleevage. For others: argyle, houndstooth, tweed.

Victoria Beckham belted her curving black sheaths and neatly tailored culotte-suits with hands-across-the-hips silver and cut diamond-shaped holes into her sweater vests like a remembrance of things lost. Emilia Wickstead offered big puffed sleeves and even bigger skirts; Roksanda, a safe space of billowing, shimmering drapes of many colors and chunky, patchwork-nation knits.

At Burberry, the chief creative officer, Riccardo Tisci, named his collection “Memories:” of the brand itself, but also of London, when he was a fashion student, living in the Bethnal Green neighborhood, and of his trips to India, where he started his own label; of the melting pot of the capital and the designer mind. That meant — checks! And trench coats! Lots of them with feathers and faux furs, deconstructed into parts and twisted into sari-like assemblages; mixed and matched and also madras for men and women; leopard and contrasting linings thrown in.

Also the occasional big star plastered on the front of a shirt, and a festival’s worth of rugby stripes in cinnamon and turmeric, as if for a game of Quidditch in Mumbai. Also some go-go silver fringe, for evening. Also a lot of green (afterward Burberry announced the show had been certified carbon neutral and that it was creating what it called “a regeneration fund” to support carbon insetting in its supply chain).

If that sounds like it is skating across the surface — not the environmental initiatives, which are laudable, but the fashion interpretations of the national totems — that’s also how it looked: polished, easy to wear, but lacking depth and soul. Which is odd, because Mr. Tisci is nothing if not an emotional designer, and it often takes an outsider (he’s Italian) to really grapple with a country’s imagery. It’s as if he is deliberately denaturing himself to appeal to as many people as possible; going not with his gut, but with his market research.

Of Risk and Reward

In any case, it still made more sense than Tommy Hilfiger’s #TommyNow celebration of Americana, inclusivity and his celebrity connections in stars, stripes, anchors aweigh, neon and slogans — “Just Rise;” “Still Human;” “Loyalty” — via collaborations with the singer H.E.R. and the Formula One star Lewis Hamilton. The effect was of a semi-party in a place that isn’t really in the mood to party any more (and that has increasingly mixed feelings about the “special relationship” between itself and its former colony anyway). The message was meaningful, but the medium confused.

Mr. Hilfiger has never been a thinking person’s designer. That is absolutely fine; not all clothes need a philosophical grounding (that would be exhausting). But a little sensitivity to context and timing is no bad thing.

British fashion — London fashion — has always had an identity more rooted in risk-taking creativity than in page-view calculation and hashtags.

In the willingness, for example, of Hussein Chalayan to not just double down on the idea of a suit and turn a pair of trousers into a cardigan for his Chalayan show, so the legs wrap the shoulders and the hips shadow the back, but to dare to write and sing his own songs, live, as an accompaniment (that’s putting yourself out there). In the explosive romance of Richard Quinn’s Buckingham Palace-size florals and empire drapes; the pointed extravagance of his nod to Pearly Kings and Queens, the cockney performers with mother-of-pearl studded costumes. In a sense of history, and the gumption to turn it on its head.

Historical Revisionism

Which is why it was so striking to see the connections between the 1920s and the 2020s being drawn at Erdem, with his Cecil Beaton-inspired checkerboards and bias frills; his Erté feathers and lamé Wedgewood-print puffers; his flapper dresses dripping loops of pearls. At Christopher Kane, where things took a turn for the sexually subversive (he called his show “Naturotica’) in more Art Deco geometries. Meant, apparently, to reference the love triangle of Adam, Eve and the serpent, and followed by lacy lingerie slips, strait-laced shirt dresses with sheer mesh tops and chain mail apple-red skirts slit to mid-hip on either side.

And at JW Anderson, where in a terrific collection Jonathan Anderson reached across the century to mix the classic with the couture with the sci-fi to create something viscerally, elegantly modern.

“I was thinking about that moment in the ’20s when everything resurged and rebounded,” he said backstage after the show, which he dubbed “nouveau chic.”

So he took heritage swing coats in camel and wool and blew them up to “optimistic volumes,” adding giant swaddling leather collars; crushed fantasy beer-can-print lamé into shift dresses; crafted sleeveless metallic bubble gowns out of fringed metallic knits to mimic a very glamorous Snuffleupagus; and topped the shoulders of flowing flannel capes, curvaceous tweed coats and silver screen siren gowns with fronds of pearly cellophane that wafted gently in the wind.

It is possible, of course, to question whether the 1920s — the years between the wars — is actually the best harbinger for fashion to embrace. They may have represented a great creative flowering, a burst of energy and social revolution, but they did not exactly end well. On the other hand, you can’t argue with the fact that if, indeed, the four horsemen are coming, at least this way we can greet them with aplomb.

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