Gigi and Bella Hadid were joined by their mom Yolanda — marking the former model's first runway appearance in almost 35 years — as Off-White™ presented its Fall/Winter 2020 collection in Paris.
The Hadid trifecta opened (Bella), walked mid-way (Yolanda), and closed (Gigi) the show, which took place in a cavernous bunker littered with sawn in half car sculptures. Titled "Slightly Off," Virgil Abloh announced a last-minute change of setting earlier in the day, "'cause a bunch of dresses couldn’t fit thru the doorway of the first venue.”
The absolute units in question did not disappoint, at least as a spectacle. While sneakerheads were busy catching a glimpse of the new Jordan sneakers, gorp stans (an off-shoot of the traditional streetwear hypebeast?) would have been casting pained, even aggrieved glances as the Hadid sisters strutted their stuff, wearing Frankenstein monster ball gowns that had seemingly been eaten alive by hacked up Arc'tyrex Alpha SV hiking jackets (priced at $750 and previously worn by Abloh on the Louis Vuitton runway at Paris men's in January).
Splicing is hardly a novel design approach (sacai's Chitose Abe has made it a hallmark), but mixing high school prom attire and extreme weather hard shells is certainly different. Whether this is the advent of a bigger project between Off-White™ and Arc'tyrex remains to be seen, but we can say with certainty that fashion's thirst for outdoors techwear doesn't seem to be slowing.
