TheTroublemakerTimes

Karl Lagerfeld, master of all things bling, became the Neitchze of fashion this week saying that “ bling is dead.” Presumably he consigned his deity to the dust heap because diamonds are now worth less than fabric, and sequins cost more than thread in the new topsy-turvy world of post-modern fashion where dialectic meets design under the gaze of the new philosopher seamstress.

 

Elegant responsibility is the buzz on the finest catwalks this spring. If you got it, hide it. Less is more. More is just cheap. And bling is not just vulgar it’s darn right immoral.

So, for your five thousand dollars this spring, expect that little black number to be more in line with that little black bag you throw your rubbish into, just more biodegradable and sensitive to the starving masses.

Gone are the glittering fringes and fake jewel encrusted hemlines. No more shiny stones on your Hermes belt, and heaven forbid, on your eye wear. Instead you get to pay just as much for that much less, and the greater benefit of knowing you won’t offend those barefoot peasants who now can only afford half a loaf of bread instead of their usual kilogram of rice, should they happen to bump into you on fifth avenue.

Of course, this a little late, as fashion trends go, even for the crypt keeper of fashion Mr. Lagerfeld. Well before the financial crisis, the more responsibly well heeled were getting hoofed in Bono’s red label.
The red label was already on the shelves of Armani 18 months ago, and gracing the screens of Oprah too.

Not just a knee jerk reaction to a credit crunch, the red label blazed the trail of responsible fashion from emporio to couture, and the naked, huddled masses cheered in front of their black and white TV’s all across Africa, Asia and the Balkans. The Queen of talk and potato chips cut the red ribbon and walked the red carpet to the red store, to buy red glasses, bras, and accoutrement from the red label with Bono, and not a red face between them.

They dashed around the stores, Armani red t – shirts, the queen took 5, oh and look black ones, but red too. Ooh you can be red but stylish too, and responsible. Change the world with talk show hosts and rock stars one designer piece at a time, or 5 if you have the money. They ran through the streets of Chicago, clutching red bags full of thousands of dollars of red designer goodies, as spectators shrieked and wailed with joy.

 

And with every ring of every cash register blind people saw in Africa, Aids retreated, Hiv shuddered in its boots, poverty picked up its skirts and ran away with clatter of high heels and a rattle of pearls. It had seen the future brother, and it was red.

Yes, and for the audience, free red stuff, in any colour you want, wow, wear it and you to can change the world. Fashion talks, it’s a new language; it says I care, it shapes the world and it makes you better. Red accessories, bling or no bling, as long as they say red you can rest and rest assured.

Then it wasn’t long before fashionable rose tinted glasses pitched up at the world economic forum, fashion had done it again, even the world leaders wanted red. Not even the conservatives saw red. Red was now no longer just a colour. It was a state of consciousness, and an elevated one at that. We could now all do the “red” thing.

Perhaps the Lord Vader of fashion was to busy blinging up his helmet to notice until the financial crises devalued his diamante underwear, despite being 18 months late, the Dark Lord had even more startling things to say, like;

“This whole crisis is like a big spring house-cleaning – both moral and physical. There is no creative evolution if you don’t have dramatic moments like this. Bling is over. Red carpetry covered with rhine-stones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty’.”

And so the “new modesty” of Lagerfeld’s couture is on its way to a planet near you, soon. And the genius continues, unabated and unashamed, where fashion and intellect collide in a new discourse for our times, the freakish times of fashion’s very own undead are currently spread all over the media with extraordinary tit bits of advice on how to dress for the new purgatory of restraint.

“I see it like a healthy thing, a horrible but healthy thing. It’s a medical treatment of the world, I see it like this.
“I think it’s a difficult moment for a lot of people and a lot of things, but in the end it was really needed, because it was really gone too far.”

“What I hate most in life are people who are not really the peach of the day but who want to be young and sexy. You can fool nobody. There is a moment when you have to accept that somebody else is younger and fresher and hotter. Life is not a beauty contest.”

But, while we wait with bated breath for the million dollar modesty collection, the fashion world continues, like its great uncle Vader to squeeze its ample form into more palatable forms of consumption.

Poverty has become the new backdrop for style, it seems, masquerading as largesse, advertising draws an ever increasing collection of the macabre into a bizarre decoupage of guilt and glamour that slips past the short attention spans of the glitterati under the guise of artistic license.

 

And, true to form, our band of Prada clad fashion gurus continue marching obliviously to the sound of their own drum, ever deeper in to the ridiculous. From the sidelines, one can only wonder just how much more the world can take, but then again, stranger things have happened, stranger perhaps, but creepier, never.