You couldn’t say this KidSuper present lacked narrative. For his newest runway chapter, Colm Dillane wrote and self-published an illustrated kids’s e-book entitled The Boy Who Jumped the Moon. Owing a good bit to Le Petit Prince, it was an allegorical retelling of Dillane’s personal (self-penned) inventive storyline: that of a bit of child with huge desires who in opposition to all odds makes them come true—however solely simply, and by the seat of his pants!
Dillane then made that e-book jacket his present, working with Thierry Dreyfus to create a set that noticed three two-storey excessive editions of the storybook line the runway. In an idea that owed a bit of to his (IMO) best present second (the portray that got here alive from its canvas, look 23 of Spring 2023), the fashions walked out of the pages of the e-book (by means of hidden creation calendar-ish doorways) because the story was narrated over the PA by Craig Ferguson, with Dillane (after all) voicing The Boy. It was a tough choreography to drag off, involving web page turners, wheeled staircases and round 12 or so exit factors onto the Musée des Arts Décoratifs runway. Backstage afterwards, Dillane stated that vexing technical points had loomed till virtually the final minute, however as soon as the present opened all of the fashions walked fortunately ever after.
As for the gathering, it additionally typically expanded on an earlier Dillane notion: the wonderful Letter Go well with and Letter Bag that have been proven throughout his fairytale fall 2023 cameo as Louis Vuitton menswear’s visitor designer. Of tonight’s enlargement, he stated: “A part of it was securing what’s a KidSuper idea: I feel this letter concept, the storytelling concept, even script writing and all of that stuff, and how one can apply that with clothes.” Books as style objects have up to now maybe most actually been explored by Olympia Le-Tan, and have been even a passing theme at this Paris season’s hottest present, nonetheless the notion was totally and innovatively learn into right here.
At one level through the present I chuckled thinly when realizing that just about your complete viewers (me included) had raised smartphones to video a present in regards to the magic of print. The tailoring-led assortment featured many illustrations drawn from and impressed by Dillane’s e-book, in addition to e-book luggage aplenty. There have been a pant and shirt that seemed like a backside drawer novel, patterned with intense cursive and livid scribble. There have been paper hats, a pencil with a bag strap, and pencils worn as ties, however sadly no typewriters. Items that seemed to reference Dillane’s again catalogue of chapters have been devoted to portray, puppets, unravelling no matter semi-apocalyptic subject final season’s climate occasion was about, and the imaginative course of. A really literal flower hat was a humorous piece worn above a really good-looking embossed leather-based overcoat. You can see from the differing high quality and really feel of the items that components of the gathering had been ghosted by totally different collaborators with various specialisms. The closing look was worn by the mercurial Italian soccer star Mario Balotelli, a casting that mirrored one other of Dillane’s abiding passions.
It was a powerful present attended by an enthusiastic and vibey crowd which—whilst this garrett-bound loser is writing up the runway—resides it up on the KidSuper post-show get together thrown in partnership with Outlander, which has been bigging up Dillane since its greatest viewers was on the platform formally often known as Twitter. Earlier than he left for that get together, Dillane stated: “The one drawback now could be: what am I going to do subsequent?”
Personally, I think {that a} KidSuper scripted actuality present that shapes its dramatic arc round simply that query might work reasonably properly. Dillane’s fashion-tainment is so anti-exclusive, and so open to collaborations from all comers (this assortment included contributors starting from Mercedes-Benz to Papa Johns) {that a} bit extra mainstream media publicity of his entrepreneurial, Peter Pan meets Willy Wonka persona might actually take him to the moon. And what a narrative that might be.