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In a day and age of fashion where we are so constantly oversaturated with over-the-top ideas for the sake of shock value and spectacle, the beauty and theater of camp is a difficult feat to achieve earnestly and with feeling. In Paris this season, at the second runway show of designer duo Matières Fécales, Hannah Rose and Steven Raj bring their iconic visual identity, classical training, and counter-culture influences to a motley crew of avant-garde outcasts, telling a Cinderella story for oddballs and eccentrics.
One could assume by aesthetic association, that the collection and audience might be just another off-shoot of the Rick Owens neo-gothic avant-garde obsessed cult of fashion kids dying to stick out in a crowd, but Matières Fécales has quickly established how strong they stand on their own, and with ample heart.
Hannah and Steven manage a delicate balance of romance, realism, freakshow, and avant-gardism in their designs, emphasized by the bold and unusual cast of characters that inhabit it. Each look encapsulates a sort of cinematic archetype, telling a rose-tinted gothic fairytale, but the bodies that inhabit these characters aren’t your usual runway models. From age-inclusivity and gender fluidity, deconstructed drag, to plus size models and even showcasing models with deformities, they represent a spectrum of humanity that encapsulates a lived-in verisimilitude essential to true camp, bringing their world-building to elevated artistic heights. As fashion circles closer and closer back to heroin-chic thin- think, model as coat hanger- Matières Fécales puts extreme bodies at the forefront, and by providing this celebratory space in a couture context, they underscore a gaping hole within contemporary fashion for stylized realism. Graciously, Hannah and Steven have extended their personal sanctuary for fearlessness of self expression to the masses.
The show’s only caveat is that nearly none of the models could walk properly in the (absolutely gorgeous) Louboutin heels that have become iconic to Hannah, in which she struts seamlessly. But as Susan Sontag writes, “The pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious.” Meaning, the truest form of camp isn’t marked by flamboyance, it’s born of missing-the-mark. Gritty mistakes and imperfections that ostracize the genre from polite society, make it what it is. From this perspective, it seems almost appropriate.
Despite the collection’s extreme forms and raw edges amongst fetish and bondage references, the feeling the collection emulates is light and airy. Roses both bloomed and decaying are sprinkled into wherever they fit, billowing ball gowns are corseted to make the tiniest waists I’ve ever seen. Sculpted corsets, surrealist headpieces, sharply tailored tweed and satin with destroyed, trailing hems. Organza is wrapped and draped with precise abstraction.
Satin skirt suits and trenches reference classical couture silhouettes in a fabulously exaggerated manner. In a pallet of beige, black, pink, red, and white, the pieces come together whimsically, yet absolutely refined. As designer Hannah puts it, “Lots of people see us as maybe gothic or something, but my favorite color is pink! »
There is a palpable romance to the meticulously crafted and refreshingly bizarre universe of Matières Fécales. After all, don’t freaks make the best of lovers?
Xo,
Rianna
