Dream Fragments

Speaking of a child's wardrobe... Who could say no to a bag that looks like a Happy Meal box? Moschino's Fall 2014 collection was Jeremy Scott's first signature for the brand and caused a fashion storm with its fast food theme. The palette, clad in McDonald's red and yellow, bags shaped like French fry boxes, milk bottle accessories, and silhouettes reminiscent of cleaning products offered a visual feast. It’s no exaggeration to say this show was one of the most prominent points of departure for accessories designed with imagination in the modern era. Although surrealist or ironic attempts had been seen before, Jeremy Scott's fast food interpretation, fuelled by pop culture, popularised this aesthetic and brought it to the heart of popular culture.

Fast forward to today, Thom Browne's lobster bag briefcase in his Pre-Fall 2022 collection blended seriousness with theatrical humour, making a witty reference to office routines. During Alessandro Michele's tenure at Gucci, dragon-headed rings, third-eye motifs, and gothic talismans transformed everyday life into a mythological scene. Simone Rocha's Spring/Summer 2023 runway featured dramatic pearl-embellished hair clips and sculptural jewellery that evoked a fairy-tale elegance, while Daniel Roseberry's Schiaparelli transformed the body into a direct work of art with oversized ear cuffs and face-shaped rings. These doors, sometimes opening onto a cotton-candy princess universe, sometimes onto Morticia Addams’s gothic mansion, point precisely to the world we are discussing.

Calvin Klein's transformation of bodega mornings into luxury runway aesthetics or Chopova Lowena's community-centred narratives prove that dreamy touches are not just fantasy but the very language of new fashion itself. As rising independent designers also take their share, the runway is no longer just a showcase but the most theatrical stage for dreaming. Dilara Fındikoğlu's bustiers, inspired by Botticelli's Venus and adorned with shells and safety pins, or her jewellery that covers the face like armour, bring fashion's dramatic imagination back to the stage, while exuberant details like Area's metallic pom-poms take the energy to new heights. For Gen Z, all this is now commonplace; no one is surprised to see someone turn up in class or at a ClassPass session with Thom Browne's famous dachshund bag; on the contrary, it adds an unexpected sparkle to everyday life.

So what really makes all this escapist? The answer lies in the fragile magic of interruption, the sudden crack in the ordinary that lets in a flicker of wonder. Fashion at its most whimsical turns the mundane into a stage where the smallest accessory can carry the weight of an entire dream. These objects are not merely adornments; they are keys, invitations, secret portals. To wear them is to allow life, however briefly, to shimmer with possibility, to make imagination not a distant fantasy but something you can hold in your hand.