Screengrabs from the video shared by designer Beate Karlsson on Instagram.
Swedish designer Beate Karlsson’s fashion show at the recent Milan Fashion Week saw clothes tearing off, heels breaking off and accessories falling off the models as they walked the ramp. In the end, the whole backdrop fell flat on its face. And yes, it was all intentional.
Titled ‘Fake it till you break it,’ the fashion show was all about dissecting and deconstructing the seriousness of fashion. Meanwhile, the videos of the show are viral.
Speaking to Hunger TV, Beate Karlsson said the idea started with the question: “What’s the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a fashion house?”
“We were exploring this idea of fake richness and wealth and how the fashion industry is just about labels and what value does it carry? So this collection became a development of that theme,” she said. “We also thought there’s something very funny about shame and how you can put that in the collection or in a runway show, and how you present something. So for our SS23 (Spring/Summer 2023) show, there was a sense of our models being ashamed because they fell over and they f***** up. Whereas now it’s more about us a fashion house screwing up because everything is falling apart.”
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Explaining how she combined luxury with showcasing the clothes falling apart and breaking away, Karlsson told Hunger TV, “We were trying to find what’s the most embarrassing thing that can happen for a fashion house and what’s the thing that is the furthest away from something being luxury. And I think that something breaking is that. So we thought it was really interesting to see if we could present a collection where things are starting to break and it could still look luxurious and still be considered luxury.”
During one of the designer’s previous fashion shows, models tripped on the runway, falling head over heels, literally, over the brand’s boots. It was one of the season’s most viral shows.
Read more: Models walk through mud at Balenciaga’s fashion show in Paris