Johnson Hartig may be one of fashion s more compelling magpies. Surrealism, rave, punk, street—he embraces it all with a gleeful exuberance and folds reworked vintage pieces in with the new. Fall found that Libertine spirit out in full force; it was a welcome, maximalist jolt in the midst of this week s staid offerings.
Women s silhouettes skewed squarely toward the 60s (fur-trimmed sack coats and minidresses galore), while the men s offering embraced more streetwear and sport-inspired shapes (hoodies, bombers, and sweatpants). They all came decked out with decades worth of pop talismans: a Warhol soup can, Duchamp s urinal, the Misfits iconic skull, doves by Braque, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer s Bumble. Even a little cherry-colored telephone from Hartig s childhood home made an appearance. The designer whipped them into patches that adorned…nearly every piece, really. The remainder was encrusted with crystal designs; a standout coat came embellished with volcanoes spitting bits of lava. Somehow it made only weird and perfect sense that Jean Cocteau s verses should end up glittering and splashed across a powder blue coat. The fabrications on the whole were a great coup, like the Surrealist multihued patchwork mink cape. And by the time Hartig s models danced, selfied, and skanked their way down the catwalk at show s end (looking, heaven forfend, actually happy), the contact high was hard to resist.
