Eighties’ street smarts and underground sub-cultures collide for an inspired take on dressing with an edge.
Prolific pop artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring had a graphic approach to their work that felt modern and entrenched in the urban landscape and sub-cultures of New York in the 1980s. Those ideas filtered through several collections for winter 2015 from the Brigitte Nielsen clones at Loewe to the highbrow art snobs at Proenza Schouler.
Evolving from The New York School art movement of the 50s and 60s, particularly the abstract expressionism that came from that scene (de Koonig, Pollock), those linear and energetic works echo a sense of movement and freedom that were ahead of their time.
What linked these movements together is the obsession with the future. While every decade has its fascination with what's to come from astronomical illustrations of the 1800s to the The Jetsons of the 60s, the future will always be a curious novelty.
In a season that looked heavily to the 70s and 60s once again, a handful of designers sidestepped the nostalgia trip by looking at the past with a romantic and futuristic lens, particularly the 80s and its heavy pop culture environment. Even Malcolm McLaren's music and art has stood the test of time, and his relationship with designer Dame Vivienne Westwood played with those ideas of street culture, aristocracy and the future through their post-punk collections.
