Second Wave Surrealism: The 2020s Are The New 1920s

When Jeremy Scott sent models down Moschino’s SS23 runway in pool floaties, he wasn’t just making a spectacle of the brand. He was embracing talk of economic inflation, turning a serious matter on its head with inflatable pool couture. One of the collection’s defining looks included a pink peplum suit swathed in a rubber flamingo tube, topped off with matching flamingo pumps. Scott wasn’t the first designer to channel surrealism during times of economic or political strife. This method harkens back to the Roaring Twenties.

Surrealism is a movement in which artists sought to depict the uncanny by blurring the lines between dream and reality. Elsa Schiaparelli is a champion of surrealist fashion, having collaborated with artist Salvador Dalí to design garments that deceived the eye. Together, they set a precedent with pieces like the “Tears Dress,” featuring a trompe l’oeil print, which bore an unmistakable resemblance to flayed flesh.

Schiaparelli and Dalí were interested in political events, particularly the First and Second World War. Turning inward toward her interwar experience, Schiaparelli viewed fashion as both a sign of the times and an escape from it. By channeling elements of violence and hysteria in her work, she coped with an unstable political climate while making history as the first to fuse fashion with art.

Today, designers are circling back to the surrealist fashion of the 1920s. Whether it’s Loewe’s balloon heels or Louis Vuitton’s oversized zippers, the uncanny has made its return to the point where we don’t even flinch at a human fan dress. Maison Schiaparelli continues to thrive under the leadership of American designer Daniel Roseberry, its name stepping onto red carpet events like the Met Gala and Cannes Film Festival. Roseberry is especially known for rendering disembodied parts of the body in gold, honoring Schiaparelli’s roots in surrealism while paving the way for its future. Earlier this year, all anyone could talk about was Schiaparelli’s lion’s head and Viktor and Rolf’s upside-down and sideways gowns. What brought on this second wave of surrealism? Well, our post-COVID-19 climate is not all that different from that of the flapper era.

Many have called the recent pandemic “unprecedented,” but it was just a hundred years ago that the “Spanish flu” infected an estimated 500 million people and wiped out 50 million from the world’s population. Political tensions heightened, millions were without jobs, and prohibition prevailed. Even the women’s suffrage movement is comparable to today’s fight for abortion rights. Both then and now, designers sought to make clothes that were just as surreal as their milieu.

In times of uncertainty, people want nothing more than to dream again. Dreaming allows us to reimagine human potential and the world around us. It mobilizes us when we’re paralyzed with fear by familiarizing the strange or unknown. Scott may not have invented surrealist fashion, but he’s one of many designers to have contributed to its revival. Now it’s up to us to decide whether the 2020s will roar as loudly as the 1920s.

Photo courtesy of Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dalí

Article by Meyme Nakash, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Designer, PhotoBook Magazine

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