Fashion for freaks — we know it’s true. Scary monsters and beautiful stripes have found their place in the industry, literally and figuratively. So, last week when Gucci’s Alessandro Michele sent dozens of twins down the runway, some of them decorated with Gizmo the Mogwai dolls wearing small leather belts? It’s just another day in Milan, honey.
Gucci’s spring show “Twinsburg” saw Gremlins of the 1984 Spielbergian breed sitting snugly inside bags and dangling from belt buckles, their pictures even featured. Blown up and screen printed evening gowns. (To expand on the film’s grumbling local conspiracy theorist, Murray Futterman: “Gremlins… They put them in the car, they put ‘them in your TV, they put’ them in the stereo. and little radios that you stick to your ears. They even put them on watches, they have little gray dogs for our watches!”) Thematically, their appearance in the session! Gucci’s performances have several meanings: Gremlins, if you recall, tend to be prolific and have many personalities,“first they are sour, then sweet” kind of deal. Michele envisioned the performance as a meditation on identity and diversity; like a brand wrote on Instagram“Repeating the theme of duality, [Gizmo] is another motif introduced by Alessandro Michele to playfully complement the codes of the House. We all play host to our various selves, be it them cute, smart, mischievous, clever or dangerous.
But then the Gremlins reappeared — multiply? —A week later, in a preview of the latest sale from Supreme, with the evil Gizmo and Gremlin Stripe appearing on hoodies and mesh hockey jerseys. Out of the box for the New York brand of skates (remember ‘Preme x Shrek’?) but still, a strange coincidence. They even turned femme gremlin Greta into a baby on the skating rink. Freaky, I tell you!
Permission of the Supreme
There must be some bigger reason why fashion has these creatures on the brain. Could it be our collective nostalgia for late-20th-century pop culture. Or are we simply more invested in the consequences of aquatic mutations? Which says, What season do you know? near the corner, which means other What season do you know? around the next corner, and Gremlins streaming on HBO Max. Two grenades, one stone? Is that how you say it?
