PHILIPP PLEIN isn’t a fashion name that rolls off the tongue – even though he’s been in the industry over ten years. How to combat that? Well last season he enlisted Rita Ora and Naomi Campbell and this season he decided to recreate the deep blue sea. From scary undulating octopus, to sand, to fish swimming – projected – on dresses.
“It’s the right amount of wrong,” enthused Plein backstage as the two-month in the making operation reached its penultimate moments. With huge underwater boulders, a 40-piece orchestra sitting tight somewhere underneath and the task of walking spindly sparkly heels through a catwalk length of sand, the collection (three months to make) didn’t seem too much, then, of an ordeal in comparison.
“We are selling dreams and emotions, giving people the chance to dive into the dream,” he reasoned – no pun intended. “The only thing left in fashion is reinventing the dream.”
Clothes-wise and this won’t be for everyone – with hardly a surface left not embellished, studded or blinged up within an inch of its life. And there isn’t anything new to see – as Plein himself pointed out. But with stage production capacities like this – and Batman-esque “PP”s being projected by light into the Milan night sky – he’s obviously doing something right.
Jessica Bumpus