From logo-less luxury to its unabashed flaunting, Spring 18 is all about flash-your-belt-buckle princesses...
For his debut as Lanvin’s third creative director in three years, Olivier Lapidus brought back the logo, plastering the label name all over silk dresses and playsuits. Gucci has been doing it for a couple of seasons now, even playfully spelling it out as ‘Guccy’ (as in teddy) on jumpers and T-shirts. Fendi’s Spring 18 runway saw a mink zipper vest layered over a varsity jacket embossed with bold Fs.
Max Mara’s runway had a sling bag screaming the label’s lettering and Moschino’s jumper dress was peppered with the brand name. Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior, who’s been at the forefront of this movement with her bringing back the ‘J’adior’ from the archive, sent out a check double breasted coat with the brand’s name splashed across the hem. While a few seasons ago, there was a push in the luxury space to embrace logo-less products and toning down the brand, fashion seems to be moving towards a scenario, ‘If you’ve got it, you flaunt it’. We get designers and experts to analyse this trend...
Immediate connect with the brand
One can deduce that brands’ marketing teams have realised that sales look up if brand and designer stories revolve around the logo. Designer Troy Costa seconds that. “Given by the sales figure recorded in the past few seasons, brands haven’t done well. They have understood the fact that an average guy connects with the brand because of the logo, hence one sees them printed boldly across sleeves and belt buckles,” says he.
Looks like today’s flash-your-cash fashionistas want to boast that they own Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana. “How to get people, who have enough clothing, to want more? How do you get a client to buy another belt buckle? The imagery gives them a new texture to play around with it,” he adds.
Excess is religion
A section of fashion commentators are of the viewpoint that it appeals to fashion buyers with no real sense of style. Fashion columnist Asmita Aggarwal shares that view. “Excess is a religion in fashion and this is just a rather exuberant form of the logo mania. What, though, remains interesting is how ‘more is now less’. If the bag seeped in logos was not enough, now we have this! I’m sure rich women with no aesthetics will lap this one up too!” she says.
Designer Aniket Satam echoes the same sentiment. “Logo screams brand addiction and speaks less about style or fashion. Its in-your-face appeal is more about fashion slavery and brand addiction. Having said that, logo mania is definitely a key trend as the ’90s hangover still lingers on our fashion mood boards for coming spring.”
Only here for a short while
Suhani Parekh, jewellery designer at MISHO Designs doesn’t see it lasting for too long. “I think logo mania is here to stay for a little while. Brands have rediscovered the perfect tool to using logos — irony and subversion. By subverting the idea of what makes a ‘luxury label’ and taking a rather ironic or sometimes political stance, labels enable their consumers to wear bold branding guilt free. We’re no longer buying into a brand, we’re buying into an ideology,” says she.
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