A dozen years ago, no major brand would have chosen a deserted concrete building as the venue for a runway show and sent models in street-style clothing onto the catwalk while loud techno sounds droned in the background. In the past, all this would have been categorized as part of a subcultural, underground scene, but designers like Shayne Oliver have now made it mainstream. Last night, he closed the first day of Berlin Fashion Week with his new label Anonymous Club, which is also a creative studio and talent incubator.
After five minutes of techno beats, the lights finally brightened and the first model appeared on the catwalk. A relatively limited color palette of white, gray and black was brightened up by small splashes of red or blue in the form of rubber gloves or bags. Rubber plays a major role in Oliver’s new vision. Models wore entire rubber outfits, rubber boots, overalls, and super muscular-looking rubber leggings that appeared almost like prosthetics under sporty short shorts.
Hoodies and jogging trousers form the core of the looks, but they were accentuated with almost ridiculously disproportionate cuts. Some models wore prosaic make-up, while others donned large horned helmets made of hair or hid their faces behind hoods. Oliver’s idea: “The people that I picked were really big personalities and they influenced me in a visual way. I tried to show them to you how I see them. The idea of evolving unknown characters.”
Oliver said he wanted to return to where his fashion language began, even before Hood by Air, and that was the hoodie. “I thought to myself: Okay, let me use the fabric and shape of a hoodie and go for it. And basically it was the best thing I could do, it was like a lack of influence,” he said after the show. “There was this purity that I’m really obsessed with, which has to do with how you feel pure and not perfect.” Indeed, it was not perfect, but that’s what made it unique.
