Valentine’s Day has always been a sensitive topic; one year you plan to have the perfect evening with your better half, and the next you’re organising a defiant singles’ night out. But Cupid’s bow seems to have done more than strike love into the hearts of some designers. Moschino and others have seized the opportunity to design around this festivity, in a style which might have very much surprised St Valentine himself. With Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ blaring over the sound system, and a boxed Barbie doll (of course dressed in Fuschia Moschino) on every seat, guests may have been perplexed as to Jeremy Scott’s vision for the house’s show. The show opens and a real life Barbie, modelled exactly upon the plastic idol in the lap of every guest, steps onto the catwalk. More Barbies follow, all dressed in pink, wearing a curled blonde wigs. You name it, Moschino’s got it: there’s ‘Business Woman Barbie’ in a pink power suit, ‘Roller Skat- ing Barbie’, ‘Work Out Barbie’, ‘Cow Girl Barbie’, and even ‘Boarding a Plane Barbie’, with luggage in tow. Jeremy Scott shows no signs of toning the (what some might call) garishness down, but why should he? His clothes and accessories have proved to be extremely popular; his taste for pop culture and kitsch is a formula that is evidently working, and perhaps it will distinguish this Valentine’s Day among others.
Katy Perry, a close friend of Scott’s, also seemed to be feeling the romance when she decided to wear her extrava- gant love-heart dress for her performance at Le Zenith in Paris. The outfit was such a success that she wore it again in Milan, and donned it for her California Dreams tour. So well-received was the dress that, when uploaded, it took eBay’s new celebrity channel by storm, selling for a bargain $8,100. If there’s anything to learn from this, it’s not to fear if you don’t have that special someone this Valentine’s Day; it’s not just about love, maybe this year you should literally wear your heart on your sleeve
