Vetements has been through a lot in 10 years, the creative direction now led by Guram Gvasalia, who has further ramped up the hype machinery by cozying up to bigwigs in music, Hollywood and fashion.
And so Travis Scott opened the spring show, his abs taut under glossy black biker leathers, quickly followed by Gigi Hadid, her famous torso encased in DHL tape — a wink to the T-shirt Gosha Rubchinskiy wore back in the day when Guram’s older brother Demna still led the brand and preferred dingy Chinese restaurants and notorious gay bars as show venues.
Friday night’s show took place in the urine-smelling underbelly of the Montparnasse Tower, a mountain of old clothes installed like a messy birthday cake near the entrance.
This retrospective show felt like a backslide for the brand, despite all the famous faces stalking the runway, including Marcia Cross, Heidi Klum and a pregnant Carmen Kass in a bra and a slip, plus the likes of J Balvin, Tom Daley, and Camila Cabello, unrecognizable in a black balaclava accessorized with sparkly earrings.
There were retreads of BMX gear, hunch-shouldered hoodies, Frankenstein suiting and accumulations of lingerie, T-shirts and wedding dresses.
At least the bombastic display was entertaining, the models descending escalators and storming out through a gauntlet of hundreds of surveillance cameras, many blinking red ominously.
The bride, who closed the show, kept looking over her shoulder, and eventually lifted her skirts and ran like hell.
