From Angels and Demons to Cars and Cellphones

That the death of Iris Apfel, the geriatric influencer whose idiosyncratic sense of personal style made her a trend star when she was effectively into her 80s, occurred smack in the course of Paris Vogue Week was each startling and oddly becoming. All of the appreciations of her life and outfits have been including as much as pointed reminders of how this complete circus pertains to the artwork of dressing, and the best way clothes may be an interface with the world in probably the most expressive, authentic manner.

I used to be fascinated with that so much over the weekend, partially due to the designers right here who, like Ms. Apfel, have constructed empires (or at the least small fiefs) on a willingness to go their very own manner — Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto. Designers with a deep understanding of the foundations and historical past of trend and an equally highly effective means to rewrite each, and to think about a special world. One whose uniforms can look weird and outrageous, however which create a way of thrilling risk: garments like permission slips to assume out of the field.

And likewise as a result of in Seán McGirr’s debut at Alexander McQueen, a home that after did the entire above, it received so very garbled.

A McQueen Misstep

Mr. McGirr had the difficult job of taking on from Sarah Burton, the longtime deputy to Mr. McQueen, who had stabilized the model after the designer’s suicide in 2010 and made it her personal, including a contact of grace to the offended romance and hovering creativeness that traversed heaven and earth and that, mixed with nice technical proficiency, outlined the McQueen identify.

Mr. McGirr is, in different phrases, the primary designer to steer the model with no explicit connection to it, and that confirmed. In a preview, he talked excitedly about Mr. McQueen’s spring 1995 assortment The Birds, in addition to the East Finish of London, tough edges and rebels, however the consequence appeared like McQueen, the TikTok dance model. It had vitality, however not depth.

There was some sharp tailoring: nipped-in trouser fits coated in damaged items of jet with shearling vests exploding from inside. There have been big sweaters that appeared as in the event that they had been swallowing the fashions complete, over leather-based trousers. A tank costume coated in what was meant to resemble smashed glass, impressed by Mr. McGirr’s smashed cellphone display screen. Some molded metal mini clothes, like wearable automotive chassis (overlook sitting down).

There have been hoof sneakers, in a nod to Mr. McQueen’s armadillo sneakers, typically full with little tails on the again. Additionally shoe baggage — stilettos inside precise baggage. The fashions walked with their foreheads thrust ahead in a parody of the offended stomp. However these weren’t the kind of garments that made you wish to rise to a problem.

To be honest, that may effectively have been Mr. McGirr’s remit: Make it youthful! Make it extra accessible! Make it extra on a regular basis! That appears to be the mantra nowadays for executives in concern of a luxurious slowdown. The issue is easiness has by no means been the purpose of McQueen; it’s been the alternative.

Within the preview, Mr. McGirr stated the primary McQueen present he remembered was Voss — the spring 2001 assortment that featured fashions trapped in a see-through sanitarium, carrying garments created from feathers and oyster shells, quietly going to items because the viewers appeared on. “I believe once I noticed Voss, I used to be like, ‘Oh, he’s actually making an attempt to say one thing,’” Mr. McGirr stated. “As a result of clearly McQueen, there’s all the time a message within the garments. There must be.”

He was proper. But if such a message exists on this assortment, it was unimaginable to establish. Possibly subsequent time.

The Energy of the Private Voice

In any case, in the case of singular visions, few have been as clear or as authentic as Rick Owens, whose grand visions marry the epic ambitions and glamour of Cecil B. DeMille to Martian oddity and a splash of soiled intercourse, providing the promise of a greater future for the alienated and the outré. Nonetheless, the weirdest factor about his assortment this season, proven in his residence/headquarters within the coronary heart of the French institution behind the Assemblée Nationale, was simply how — effectively, wearable it was.

The signature Owens silhouette was nonetheless there: bulbous on the high, attenuated within the center, grounded on the backside with what the designer, backstage, known as his pyramid moon boots, so the physique appeared like a chunk of taffy stretched between two poles. So was the intense: clothes created from coils of ropes. However there have been additionally fluted clothes knit on the bias, like probably the most cozy silver display screen robes, and sweeping Maid Marian capes; even ponchos with the phrase “Porterville,” the central California city the place Mr. Owens grew up and that he escaped, splashed throughout the entrance. Ponchos! What?

“Now is just not the second for fireworks and smoke bombs,” Mr. Owens stated earlier than the present. “Now’s the second for everyone to cling collectively and to attach.” As a substitute of bombast, he provided balm, however with out resorting to the carapace of normalcy.

That is additionally true of Yohji Yamamoto, one other one of many nice designers of our time, who has stayed true to his personal more and more intricate and detailed exploration of historical past and emotion even because it has trended out and in of trend. On this he’s like his pal, Azzedine Alaïa, and like Mr. Alaïa, whose single-minded pursuit of his personal aesthetic had him first rejected after which rediscovered as a kind of guru earlier than his demise in 2017, Mr. Yamamoto is due for a reckoning.

He’s the final nice romantic in trend, and what makes his work extraordinary is that whereas it skitters throughout time and references, dipping into one period right here, one other one there, it additionally transforms them, folding them right into a type of Möbius strip all of the designer’s personal.

This season that meant Brancusi geometries and Edwardian suiting that turned to reveal bustles like orchid origami — a mix that turned up in a special type at Junya Watanabe. He provided a kind of math-meets-the-bourgeoisie mixture of sculpture, biker jackets and wallpaper florals that, like Mr. Yamamoto’s work, added as much as much more than the sum of its components. One staid black overcoat was hung with studded biker belts, trying like heraldic banners or Miss Universe sashes, as if a punk had stormed not simply the henhouse, however the internal sanctum.

A Lesson to Bear in mind

It’s not insignificant that Mr. Owens and Mr. Yamamoto are two of the uncommon substantial impartial designers working right this moment: designers who began from nothing beneath their very own names and constructed their manufacturers as they noticed match, permitting themselves the posh of growing their very own factors of view and materials language.

And it makes it arduous to not surprise what would occur if somebody comparable to Mr. McGirr had been allowed to design beneath his personal identify, reasonably than being requested to imagine the mantle of a legend.

What if the large teams, comparable to Kering, which owns McQueen, invested in constructing new manufacturers, reasonably than preserving and resurrecting outdated ones and biking by way of designers to kind of reinvent them — however not an excessive amount of! — the equal of demanding they begin talking in tongues?

In creating manufacturers that might be, to cite the musician Robert Fripp, “resplendent in divergence,” just like the delightfully bizarro creations of Noir’s Kei Ninomiya. As Ms. Apfel confirmed, that will really be the very best look of all.