Futurist thinking

KTZ FW16
By Lewis Firth | Fashion | 12 January 2016

Scholars are in disagreement about when Russian Futurism began – it was sometime around the beginning of the 20th century. But no one cares when it happened; what matters is that it did. Futurists were forward-thinkers. Modernity’s speed compelled them to embrace it and what it wrought: technological advancements, progressive ideas and the abandonment of concepts and art that were considered to be artefacts of a previous –super-boring – world.

Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were considered relics and, said in the ‘Futurist Manifesto’, they should be “heaved overboard from the steamship of modernity.” Mix that with Americana and you get KTZ’s FW16 line-up.

Scarlet – communist – red, black and white vertical stripes were slapped onto fur coats, leather coats, hoodies and voluminous trousers. Similar colours are employed in a KTZ-style, hand-woven jacket to create a compelling pattern worthy of any Futurists’ standards.

Injections of Americana were seen throughout: baseball-laced trousers and jackets, American-football helmets and bowling-style shoes. Athleticism was a complementary injection; geometric patterns were softened because of this: conspicuously tropes of a Russian Futurist origin were plastered across jumpers, tops with distinctive typographical elements from the Russian language. Pejoski’s revised edition of Futurism would do David Burliuk and his comrades proud.

GALLERYCatwalk images from KTZ FW16





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