It wasn’t a bird, and it wasn’t a plane—this was KidSuper. It wasn’t a bad theatrical production, a good comedy show, or a great piece of live art masquerading as an auction. “This is a fashion show,” said Colm Dillane, “So you better review it as so!” Well, okay.
KidSuper rolled back into Paris and did indeed deliver a fashion show. The opening section was fashion show 101: It featured a contemporary dancer dropping pliés and whirls around a mysterious Miss Havisham character shrouded in black tulle petticoats. There were two columns of white yarn suspended down the runway to signify Dillane’s riffing on Einstein’s string theory (shorthand: everything is connected in mysterious ways). The final look saw a model in a white KidSuper suit and a black wool skirt; the latter unravelled as he walked down towards the photographers. We were in the space where Dries Van Noten and Junya Watanabe had just shown. This was definitely a fashion show. (Will that do?)
The thing is that Dillane is not only a fashion designer. He’s a highly ambitious character, an artist-entrepreneur who has fixed upon fashion as the prime (but not only) medium through which to satisfy his hunger. And he has some great ideas. Here we saw more variations of his kissing jacket, this time produced in collaboration with Canada Goose (the fleeces were also excellent). His penchant for violet was sated with graphic suiting featuring his illustrations of Einstein’s hypotheses in a slouchily vagabond silhouette.
There were references to his memorable Louis Vuitton menswear cameo in the sheaf of paper bag toted by one model, and a long red coat of fabric sheafs in disarray. Ronaldinho delivered a left field cameo in a massive faux fur and T-shirt printed with his own image: Royalty was in the room. There were heaps of accessories, including little grips in highly recognizable (cough) shapes and a super fun sewing-machine bag. A new monogram on denim patterned around the silhouettes of two dancers looked highly promising. The confetti didn’t fall exactly when it was supposed to, but no matter: KidSuper can’t be boring.
