Close Your Eyes

Rage against the fashion machine: FAT day III

If androgyny is in, Christabel turned the trend up two notches last night with a full circle dragging show. The performer appeared on the FAT runway first in a mister-man costume suit, then took a hammer to masculinity and birthed a set of streamers out his paper-mache stomach.

Next he pulled on a wig and pair of red-rouge lips, making the transformation complete. Out came a feather boa and a set of garden clippers, time to snip off the dick. The strap-on big black dildo was tossed into the crowd, a signal for the fashion to start.

First up was Hedylidae’s creamy commercial collection, followed by Aimee Tobolka’s indulgence in sheer, lace, and netted love. After that were Heidi Ackerman’s deconstructed dolls, covered in slate-silver headgear and strapped on football shoulders.

Between shows Magneta Lane played its girlish indie rock and set the stage for Romandin, an elaboration on Cristina Sabaiduc’s Mass Exodus collection. Sabaiduc, who has worked under both Carolina Herrera and Jeremy Laing, showed looks built with chicken wire and filled with fabric strips alongside minis covered in the texture of abstract paint.

After Asphyxia sent out an angsty collection and a final model spouting blood, more of the Rye-high fashion kids. Last a lengthy performance piece, In Bitu by Karey Shinn. It started with hip-hop dancers, then more gowns letting go of balloons.

A pink haired Davy Crockett followed, hunting two doe models, complete with antlers on top their heads. Sparkling purple, blue, and silver mermaids swam out after, then a seaweed covered dancer, more balloons, and a stormy masked goddess who was the last sight of the night.

Earlier as the crowd spilled in and squished itself up against the walls the whisper went through the photo pit: when will FAT explode and LGFW crumble? The answer? Not yet, not now, probably not ever. The two occupy opposing fashion spaces—FAT’s for art’s sake, LG a retail PR push.

Still, it was not so long ago LG—then Loreal—was an underdog itself, so the established fest may want to watch its back.