No No No, Noki!

These nightmarish photos are from trashion designer’s Noki’s Spring '08 show this past September at London’s Fashion East, which takes place during London Fashion Week and showcases emerging designers.
















Noki is 36-year-old club kid (uhhhhhh… you think?) Jonathan “JJ” Hudson, who’s trying very hard to do that unbelievably tired assumed anonymity thing. Maybe because his work is so. freaking. cheesy. Apparently, when he appears in public, it's usually only in one of his signature surgical masks. (So SARS!) His House of Sustainability collection -- shown above, reviewed here and discussed here -- is made from a bunch of um, old junk, and is not for sale (as if you’d WANT to look like Rainbow Brite on meth?). Instead, he encourages you to copy his look. Again, if you want to look like a tweaked-out anime character covered in graffiti and shame.

I’m sorry, but this is some bass-ackwards Project Runway “Unleash your inner demons” thrift store experiment gone hideously, horribly, unreasonably awry. It’s like someone tossed a bomb through the window of Heatherette and then brutally massacred Hot Topic atop the flaming pyre. This is like some broke-ass overzealous art schooler’s ill-advised tribute to Leigh Bowery. This is like why you shouldn’t let members of the Insane Clown Posse design your Spring collection. This makes Gareth Pugh (who also rose to superstar status after his Fashion East show) look like Margaret Thatcher. Um, let’s see. What else? This looks like some bored emo kids broke into Barbie and the Rockers’ wardrobe and went craycray with the cuttin’ and the pastin’ and the embellishin’. This is why you shouldn’t Dumpster dive behind House of Field while drunk.

Dude. We GET it. You’re REBELLING. You LOVE to deconstruct. And you’re MAKING LOTS OF STATEMENTS and stuff. You’re totally PLAYING WITH GENDER ROLES and PERCEPTIONS and you’re RECLAIMING fashion by REVITALIZING vintage pieces and making them YOUR OWN. You’re probably REALLY INTO POST-MODERNISM! But really? Masks are for Halloween. And cotton candy wigs are best left to drag queens and troll dolls. Clubbing died with the ‘90s! Less is more! SO much more! So please… less?

I’m all for being green and using and wasting less and hanging onto to old clothes and repurposing them or whatever but NOT at the expense of looking like a deranged party clown, brah.