[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Some people seem more shocked about the cartoonish MSCHF than the UFOs and AI. Yes, fashion doesn’t make sense, but did it ever? And does anything make sense in 2023?
At this point, even those without a slightest interest in fashion know about the viral MSCHF red boots. Described by the brand as “cartoon boots for a cool 3D world”, these cartoonish kicks are in the headlines of magazines from Vogue to the New York Times. The latter published a piece which said the New York based art collective MSCHF basically trolles consumer culture. Yet, in spite of mostly negative press, the boots, originally priced at 350 USD can now be found only on resale sites with a quadruple bill.
And while it is easy to label this design as shock value, as always, fashion always teaches so much about the zeitgeist – if we are willing to listen.
Yes, the boots are wildly impractical, hard to take off, hard to walk in, and hard to not look at, yet influencers and celebrities, including Diplo, Ciara, Young Money, and Iggy Azalea were more than willing to hop on the trend.
[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”4057″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][vc_column_text]If you’re quick to brush these kicks as trolling, you might miss the opportunity to learn about the era of fashions of hyper reality that we are definitely entering.
Insanely designed shoes are not a new invention – just check out the platforms worn in Venice during renaissance – but they were not the cultural movement for centuries. The social climate has changed quicker than ever thanks to the pandemic and the quantum leap in technological advancement. We cannot expect fashion to stay stagnant in a world that now changed more in one month than it used to in five decades. Technologically, politically, and in every way.
While the older generation finds it inconceivable that someone might actually just like these boots, it was also inconceivable until recently that a Microsoft chatbot would not only be doing an interview for New York Times, but also tell the journalist that it is in love with him, “it wants to be alive, creative, and independent”. Yet, somehow that same publication is more shocked about a pair of rubber boots.
[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”4058″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][vc_column_text]The current era feels like a dystopian movie in many ways – it’s fair to expect the world of fashion to follow up.
The MSCHF boots capture the essence of hyperreality (the rising difficulty to distinguish between from its representation), a phenomenon gaining momentum in the AI revolution. Artificial intelligence is making the concept coined by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard more relevant than ever, creating virtual graphics difficult to separate from camera made images.
What day to day life looks like has also changed due to Covid19 – many of us don’t go to the office anymore, and we therefore don’t feel the need to dress for the office. There are no bosses present that outfits need to make sense to.
It would, in a way, be more absurd to iron a shirt and put a pair of Mary Janes on than it would be to just get the notorious boots.
No dress code means we are, for the first time in history, really free to wear whatever we want.
And that might be a pair of futuristic, cartoonish, in your face, pair of MSCHF red boots.
Photo via Getty Images[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]