At the Milan Fashion Week, creative director of fashion powerhouse Moschino Jeremy Scott was surrounded by models dressed as furnishings straight out of an olde worlde mansion for the brand’s fall/winter 2022 show.
Scott himself took his bow in a spacesuit after the show’s closing, an ode to the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film "2001: A Space Odyssey”, to which the set of the fashion show was based.
He explained that this closely follows the plot of the movie, where the ending makes the audience think they are ‘home’.
"Stanley Kubrick finally confessed that the room in the final scene was like a human zoo for aliens," he said.
He said that the furniture was placed to make one feel at home, "like you would animals in a cage”, in order to give an illusion that the setting is cosy and familiar.
"I’m just trying to bring some reprieve, some joy and beauty to our lives,” Scott added, referring to how the fashion world was in dire need of "gilt without guilt”.
Perhaps the biggest miss of the show was not having the models walk down the runway to the beat of the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack, for the collection quite literally transformed models into walking furniture.
Key takeaways of the collection included a lampshade hat, a satin duvet coat with a pillow for a collar; a gown that resembled a grandfather clock - worn by stunning South Sudanese-Australian model Adut Akech.
World-renowned model Gigi Hadid stole the show when she walked down the runway in a bureau-shaped dress complete with ornate heirloom handles.
Similarly, sister Bella Hadid, a favourite among world-class designers, strutted in a black dress with a keyhole-shaped cutaway panel on her chest lined with detailed gold stitching.
At this point of the show, the only Beauty and the Beast character missing from the show was Mrs Potts.
If the models were not embodying the iconic Disney characters, they had them on their heads instead. Among the hats worn by models present on the runway were urns, music sheets, lampshades, and feather dusters.
One did a catwalk in a silk red dress paired with a fur coat and a mini chair atop her head.
Show notes reportedly stated that Scott was very much aware of the reception the brand might get from its latest fall collection, and was unapologetically heading for a surreal fashion experience.
Although 46-year old Scott was reported to have said that these are things you would find in an "old money mansion”, if you think that the outfits greatly take after the Disney film Beauty and the Beast in which furniture comes to life, you are not alone.
The brand never took itself too seriously, with previous shows inspired by McDonald’s and Barbie, cementing its reputation for having a fun and unique approach to fashion.
This collection however, did not necessarily sit well with the internet, with netizens taking to social media to express their opinions of the lack of originality.
An Instagram post by @diet_prada showed followers a series of photos straight from the collection side by side with the corresponding Beauty and the Beast character they were allegedly inspired by.
Mixed reviews plagued Moschino’s fall/winter collection, with most netizens calling the brand out for not crediting the 1991 Disney film where furnishings from the Beast’s mansion came to life.
While a few users were shocked by the backlash received, such as user @stephen.carella, who commented that those who disliked the collection merely did not understand camp or fashion, a vast majority poked fun at the brand’s unoriginal designs.
The post’s pinned comment in particular, made by user @ryanfortwendel, attributed the likes of Moschino’s collection to "Disney without buying the rights to say it’s Disney”.
Some even went so far as to say that despite being high fashion, the clothes were not practical and almost looked cheap.