LAZOSCHMIDL Summer 2019 Over the Edge

June 1, 2019

This collection is interesting as the first thing that perhaps comes to mind when gawking at Lazoschmidl Summer 19 are images from Passolini’s infamous movie Salo of 1975 which interprets the darkest of the works of the Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse François de Sade who wrote 120 Days of Sodom) in which young sadists and their submissive victims mutually wager for approval or dominance in various games of sexual power plays. You may cue this collection’s theme then as Playdate (yup per the press release) and one of this brand’s Leitmotivs (inspirations) as Sexual Liberation (as per the brand and press release), which may be, sadly, one of the reasons that Lazoschmidl has a celebrity following. Sad because, of course sexuality – or libertinage for that matter – never needs one particular style, while vacant celebrities continue to live without imagination.

So not a recommended movie the one by Passolini, but having artistic merit, sure, and this little sartorial marvel created by Lazoschmidl is the same, where, despite (or because of) the undertones of libertinage, sartorial art is driven to its logical conclusion of human shame, mockery, and humiliation in a grand display which is nevertheless quite elegant, pleasing to the eye, and even beautiful. A form of sexual weaponization of the sartorial arts we may call it. Or perhaps that the sartorial arts here are attempting to redeem the baser human instincts.

Interesting then that the brand should mention literature as its source of inspiration in that every look on the runways was first conceived in thought and subsequently in text before being put into the garments (spinning fiction into garments), so that we would like to know what exactly the creators had in mind when showing us this extraordinarily outré collection, but let it be said that after witnessing this faux scandal of gross indecency on the runway not much is left to our collective imagination where the press release on the Summer 19 collection states that the concept of Lazoschmidl is based on ‘social norms’ because …

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”… the garments evoke schizophrenic feelings within the audience: something that feels attractive but forbidden without being harmful or surreal. It is the reassurance of daring to dress-up and feeling sexy …”

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In other words very provocateur, to which we like to reply here at Endymion that in the information age (where the attractive but forbidden is available at everyone’s fingertips) sexual liberation is very much passé, and that what is the trend these days is not sex but actually abstinence while keeping your smartphone in your right hand as a fetish and a pleasure tool. So that, just like how rock ‘n roll once died in the 90’s, today at the time of SS 2019, sexual liberation or libertinage as a force of social change has got to be stone dead.

And thus it was precisely Donatien Alphonse François de Sade who, as patron saint of the Surrealist painters and as icon extraordinaire of ever unexplained horrific erotic fiction, first realized that talking about sex with its potential for scandal does not so much serve to attack moral standards, taboos or social norms of a given time or age of society, but that instead the subject serves quite well indeed to attack both reason and rationality itself, thereby making mockery and short thrift of the false premise of the vain enlightenment idea born out of the American and French revolutions that all men must be equal and that man is a reasonable creature and therefore a rational being entitled to his freedoms.

A grand fallacy of course so well exposed by de Sade, who points out in a devious way that sexual freedom is a private pleasure and a privilege serving to maintain existing power relationships while the function of reason only serves the strong to keep dominion over the weak. Nothing to do with liberty or equality at all therefore, but rather the reverse.

“Everything in society is always about sex – except sex; sex is about power.”
— Oscar Wilde

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So rien a voir (nothing to see) here where the Lazoschmidl collection tries to bust social norms or taboos with the sexual weaponization of the fashion runway, as this would only serve the continued futile attempt of the bourgeoisie to prove the point over and over again that one is always free to do as one pleases. Well, of course you are. But when you do it, best done it in style. And this is where this interesting collection makes a noble effort indeed.

Lazoschmidl is the combined brainwork of designer Josef Lazo and creative director Andreas Schmidl and is based in Sweden. They do mostly knitwear, but also evening wear and underwear. The brand is a trendsetter and has many followers who are mostly male. There are stock outlets in New York and LA. The brand has an influencer and celebrity following. Following magazines have featured their collections in covers: 032C, L’Officiel Homme, Vanity, V Man, Man About Town, Bon, Buffalo Zine, HERO, Numéro Homme, and Vogue.

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Collection materials / methods: printed organza and lurex jacquards

Collection colors / pattern influence: Matisse, Ken Price, David Hockney

Photos, Lazoschmidl

Critique, Sandro