Spare us, please, another dose of Derelicte. Thankfully Christopher Shannon s carrier bag hoods heralded something more thoughtful than that. Outside the 1 percent-inflated bubble of central London, much of the United Kingdom is having a rough time of it right now. Broke and decried by some as broken, Britain is not in the best condition. So there s a context for a politically touched fashion statement—something not seen here often since Katharine Hamnett back in the 1980s. But where Hamnett s sloganeering was direct, polemical, and campaigning, Shannon s commentary is sideways, observational, and played for laughs: a portrayal reminiscent of Keith Talent in Martin Amis London Fields.
The blue and white stripes of a carrier bag emblazoned with "Save Me" in red lettering knitted onto a sweater echoed the "value" (aka cheapest) food range of Tesco, the U.K. s largest supermarket chain (which is itself suffering a radical management-led downsizing). The "broke" slogan on a Coca-Cola-esque can and the "Thanks For Nothing" on the side of a generic corner-shop bag sweater decoration projected Pound Shop rage still further. Despite the slogans, however, Shannon s chief dialect is sportswear: oversized, popped apart, cinched by odd corsetry, or applied with a slick shine and teamed with chains, gel, and a scowl. Still, a real chin-stroker could work up a hypothesis about the designer representing a faceless, prospect-starved generation cast adrift on high streets awash with shuttered businesses. Yet whether this angers Shannon or amuses him is unclear.
