Best-in-Show (Moscow): Dasha Gauser

Something wicked this way comes… My Best-in-Show review for any given fashion week is not really about superior craftsmanship or fabrics and textures, color blocking or any other garment design elements (although they all should be in-synch, on par, top notch). For me, it’s all about the context, the zeitgeist, the cultural lighting in a bottle at the end of a nowadays catwalk. For her fall-winter 2015 collection, DASHA GAUSER weaved the most stylish gossamer web of here-and-nows at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Moscow. Inspired by the tried and true Rorschach inkblot test, Gauser created an inconspicuous collection that taps into the volatile energy of a geopolitical and socioeconomic clusterfuck that is Russia today. Hermann Rorschach originally researched his inkblots as a schizophrenia diagnosis tool. Wikipedia says: “Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations, reduced social engagement and emotional expression.” If Russia were a person, I’d call in an intervention! Of course, the signs are in the eye of the beholder (me), so call me crazy, but… Gauser’s symmetrical patterns invoke convulsing post-Crimea borderlines or the traces of sanctions trap-lasso, the silk lace and sportswear cut reveal the exhausting dichotomy of pursuing quick luxury and staving off generational scarcity that is commonplace among Russians, the ornamental cut of the tops resembles peaks along the Kremlin walls, the pastel palette only heightens the sensationalism of the unsaid, the unseen, the TBD… While history’s verdict on Russia’s current state of affairs is a ways away, Dasha Gauser gets a definitive clean bill of creative health now. (Pssst, pssst… and can we take a moment to acknowledge what a hunk of a mad scientist Hermann was?! Don’t miss his “profile pic” below)