No surprise that I loved Meadham Kirchhoff AW11, what an awesome show, first off they ditched the conventional catwalk structure and marched their models out together en masse and not one by one. Opening in the pitch black the models gathered under the arches of the Topshop venue at old Billinsgate market like the bad gremlins in Gremlins the movie when they gatecrash the pub.
As the lights came up they marched forward like a stormy sea wave, with all the focus of one of those 11 year old chinese gymnasts that can do triple backflips on a 3 inch bar.
The music was unearthed from graveyards and old horror movies, the best kind of horror movies, with poltergeists and people getting thrown around their bedrooms in their pyjamas, waking up to find yourself floating on the ceiling like Micheal does in 'The lost boys' ('they're maggots micheal you're eating maggots'). I love a bit of unexplainable occurances, deathly hallows, the darkest recessions of the human mind....the unknown, the wierd and the wonderful. It freaks me out so much like i cant sleep and i get nightmares but god do i love a bit of horror.
The set was heartbreakingly pretty like all graves are, there were flowers and momentos, photos....memories....youth...everything that is not death. Ben and Ed are exceptional young men....they are bright, brave, insightful and romantic.The set brought me back to the 'Blessings of the graves' in Ireland where i used to steal the white quartzite stones from the graves of my grandparents and then go to the local shop and buy quarters of rhubarb and custard sweets in paper bags. I would recall all year the taste of them and the pungent smell of churches in my nose, the cold knees, the frankincense billowing out over the dead people in the churchyard.
This is ed, he looks like Peter Pan here.
This is Ben.
Ben again.
The colours even though they were bold and strong were sweet and rich like cake icing, reds staggered in between the blacks and navys, raspberry freeze pop blue, sugar mouse pink...with hair by James Pecis, make up by the delightful Florrie white and hats as always completely inspired and magical by the one and only Nasir Mazhar who must be one of the most adored men in fashion as far as i can see everyone that meets him falls in love with him.http://www.nasirmazhar.com
It got me thinking of grassy hills, Heidi and goats, except that even though I'm sure the Meadham Kirchhoff army milked the goats and made delicious goats cheese and loved them from when they were soft haired bleating kids, i have a feeling they also offered them up as sacrifices to their beezlebub.
There was definitely an air of dark worship about the place or maybe it was just death and that's probably scary enough. The dark glasses were very funeral, a bit wino forever in Beetlejuice, a little chink of lagerfeld.....you could think that behind the glasses they all had yellow goats eyes instead of human eyes. There was a menace and a beauty and a glory to it all. It kinda felt like a power from somewhere else, the power of more than one, the power of togetherness, a clan, a sect, an army. I think humans are way scarier than ghosts and the devil, at the end of the day the only thing we need to be scared of is each other.
So BE NICE.
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