god it's like a poor-man's anna sui....endlessly redundant.
Admittedly, I thought of Anna too when I first glanced at this offering. But, as costume-y, and as hippie-festival as it all is here-- Hedi's stuff always does looks expensive. It
is redundant, but he never fails at making it all look expensive. No one can take that away from him.
I like Hedi's aesthetic, and I like how faithfully-- or stubbornly, he still sticks to his skinny look. But this insistence on always presenting a (retro) music-related aesthetic in his presentation is so boring. How long can he revise Teddy Boys, the psychedelic 60s, the glam-rockers of the 70s, and the new wavers of the 1980s, grunge-- even the young indie scene in California (which is just more retro), before his style becomes a caricature version of fashion's "Rock Legends" and the SL label becomes a predictable caricature of the ultimate wannabe-rock star's wardrobe for rich kids? (Those intricately embroidered, weaved, knitted embellishments on some pieces are always beautiful-- but the same argument could be made for Eli Saab; does that make a collection interesting, though?)
All the same, those defending him by insisting that just because he's doing the opposite of the boxy and minimalist trend in fashion, or he's not conforming to season-appropriate colorful, breezy suits and ties, doesn't give him an automatic pass, either. And taking inspirations from indie LA kids and mixing it with literal fashions of a time in musical history doesn't automatically equate style, either.
I'm starting to feel that a short film/ extended music video would be much more tolerable (even interesting and entertaining, and maybe even impressive), accompanied by a showroom presentation where buyers/ press can get up close and personal with the pieces, than a traditional fashion show for his collections-- which does bore me senseless, with these gormless kids stomping down the runway so void of any presence.
