The best fantasies are usually abandoned around the age of about seven. At one point, we all wanted to be a cowboy-fashion designer-pirate-princess-gymnast-teacher. Who owns a pony and eats candy for dinner, obviously. This season at Acne Studios, co-founder and creative director Jonny Johansson presents a collection that indulges those fantasies, while remaining highly commercial and tailor-made for our current economic moment.
Johansson’s collection is defined by sculptural construction and historical, almost costume-like silhouettes and accessories. The show opens with a high-low, bubble hem ruched skirt styled over white leather trousers and cowboy boots, with a beige bomber jacket thrown on top. The silhouette of the skirt, as well as the look’s sandy color palette, are immediately reminiscent of European 18th-century gentlemen's attire. In France in particular, courtly gentlemen often wore white breeches or stockings, as well as jackets that were short in the front with longer tails in the back. The next look, look two, is even more reminiscent of a French 18th-century courtier, featuring knee-length breeches, exaggerated buckled shoes, and a relaxed take on the aforementioned jacket. By playing with silhouettes and sizes, Johansson creates a surrealist, dream-like effect — put together by someone whose impression of an era has been distorted by the lens of childhood fantasy.
Another great example of Johansson’s grappling with half-remembered, fantastical ideas is look five. Featuring exaggerated, pointed-toe shoes, a floral jacket and a brown cowboy hat, the look is vaguely historical and totally dashing — he could be a pirate, a cowboy, or an 18th-century gentleman. The combination of different historical and fantastical elements gives the look a dream-like quality, evoking the mish-mash of references that occurs when our brains rest at night.
The choice of aristocratic silhouettes as a reference is particularly interesting when contrasted against the fact that this collection is deeply commercial. While many looks are styled in ways that aren’t particularly wearable for the average consumer, they are made up of individual pieces that are. Take look fifteen, for example— an olive-green trench coat is belted three times over a bare chest, slouchy jeans, and flat sliders. The look itself is not feasibly wearable in terms of temperature or nudity, but if the styling were stripped back, it would be.
Johansson’s collection is also filled to the brim with belts. At least one is included in almost every look. The looks that don’t include belts, such as look thirty-four, invariably include other small accessories — in this case, "lover’s eye" style brooches, popularized during the Georgian era and yet another reference to aristocracy.
Belts and brooches can be sold at more accessible price points than clothes, bags or shoes, a boon for business in an increasingly cash-strapped economy. Is Johansson trying to send a message about the state of the world by centering these accessible accessories and warped old-world references, or is he simply trying to sell more Acne products? It’s probably a bit of both. What is clear is that this collection encapsulates the tension that is at the very core of the fashion industry, particularly where mid-sized, independent brands are concerned: how do you translate a fantasy into a commercially viable product?
