“You’re so cash.” Recall, if you’ll, that unforgettable line from Swingers, delivered within the midst of a pep speak at a nightclub. Cash is the first manner we denote worth in our society. “You’re so cash” means you have got a lot worth. You might be so superb. Gareth Pugh’s newest assortment was so, so cash. Actually, in that there have been precise pence cash sewn onto the garments—a gesture that, in a distinct assortment, you’d be tempted to learn as a press release about luxurious, or one thing alongside these strains. However Pugh’s cash wasn’t elevating questions. It was proposing an answer: Exit. Go balls out. Costume to the nines, as if every part this world has to supply belongs to you, as a result of it does. You should purchase no matter you need with the forex that’s you. Be extravagant with your self, and for god’s sake, have enjoyable.
The excessive spirits of this assortment, in the meantime, raised a query: What on earth acquired into Gareth Pugh this season? Heading backstage after this exuberant, brilliantly styled present, you half-expected to search out Pugh bouncing off partitions and singing the praises of a brand new cocktail of serotonin reuptake inhibitors or, higher but, a brand new love. The reality was slightly extra prosaic. Pugh was as much as some point-making right here: We every comprise multitudes, was his message, and apparently dour Gareth Pugh is completely able to placing his well-developed design muscle mass to work within the creation of a set with a disco temper, simply because the Gothic Gareth Pugh babes he’s cultivated see match, infrequently, to slough off their cares and paint the city crimson.
Purple was Pugh’s signature colour this season. The colour pulsed by means of quite a few appears to be like, from the impeccably tailor-made silk faille fits, with their flared, attenuated silhouettes, to the paillette-covered short-shorts made for shimmying. The paillettes made maybe their most beautiful look in a trim black trench coat—the best way the sequins dappled in regards to the coat’s chest and shoulders advised the motion of strobe lights dancing over pitch-colored garments. The nightclub atmospherics prolonged into Halston-esque draped clothes and appears in a black-and-white diamond patterned jacquard that conjured the timeless incandescence of membership deity Leigh Bowery. The nightclub power was current, too, in Pugh’s wonderful, Mongolian fur–trimmed plastic jackets, with their frisson of sexual risk (and perversity). The general impact was magnificently louche.
Pugh clearly knew he’d be surprising the viewers by sending out a group premised on the pleasure precept. Did he know he’d be displaying them maybe his greatest assortment ever? He in all probability knew that, too. Pugh ought to interact his gaudy aspect extra usually—right here he demonstrated that his rigor as a craftsman can flip just about any look into pure class. His artistry is so cash. And Pugh has extra the place that got here from: He can afford to spend freely.
