Toward the end of Adrian Appiolaza’s Moschino show, a model emerged in a T-shirt dress printed with a baby’s face above which hovered a thought bubble exclaiming “Stop!” The Native American proverb “we do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children” came to mind. Since arriving at the brand a year and a half ago, Appiolaza has mostly skirted the social issues that were integral to Franco Moschino’s MO. But this season, in his embrace of arte povera (or the “poor art” of making much with little), he nodded in the direction of our planet.
It’s good timing. A new report says we’re perilously close to crossing the seventh of nine ocean boundaries; the oceans are acidifying at an alarming rate, and earth needs all the help it can get. Appiolaza’s rallying cry for spring was reuse, recycle, reimagine. That took different forms: a dress made from customized burlap potato sacks, another made from a collage of sewn-together tees, another reconstructed from vintage pieces; rope as embellishment in place of embroidery; raffia sandals modeled on toilet brushes.
Appiolaza is obviously keen on experimentation and play. There was a nonstop stream of the gag bags that have become a popular part of his output, among them a sand bucket, a saucepan, and a cardboard clutch that could’ve been a callback to his predecessor Jeremy Scott’s fall 2017 collection about overconsumption and waste. Kudos to Appiolaza for taking a stance, especially in a season when most designers are shying away from meaningful topics in favor of pure commerciality. But questions of commerciality will inevitably come up. As he moves forward at the brand, he’ll need to work fast at establishing his Moschino look—meaning the line of a jacket or the cut of a pair of pants. What are the things that will keep shoppers coming back? There has to be more to it than a logo, a slogan, and a smiley tee.
