I’m standing in a room dominated by an elevated stage lined with silver couches and beanbag chairs, at a 30,000-square-foot shipyard in Shanghai, China, alongside the Huangpu River, when Rihanna walks in.
The complete futuristic lounge pit—which is full of folks shouting over music blasting from an infinite modular growth field so huge it has its personal cereal dispenser—goes silent. Carrying an all-red catsuit with oversize protect sun shades tucked into her updo, Rihanna is ushered in by the daddy of her kids, rapper A$AP Rocky, who leads her to an angular sofa within the middle, the place he sits beside her, hand in hand. The 2 musicians take just a few sips of champagne and snort collectively. Then, Rocky appears to be like across the room and exclaims, “Let’s do that!”
Shortly after, fashions ascend the stage, carrying shiny inexperienced, orange, and yellow moto-inspired puffer clothes. Some put on helmetlike trapper hats, just like the one atop Rocky’s personal head. Rihanna holds her cellphone in her hand your entire time, twisting and turning to seize the very best glimpses at her accomplice’s Moncler Genius assortment. When the runway present is finished, Rocky stands as much as take a bow and Rihanna grins and claps. Then they each stroll out as briskly as that they had arrived, and the room erupts with exclamations.
Mine being: “That felt like a fever dream.”
I spent most of my time at Moncler’s Metropolis of Genius attempting to give you a metaphor that would describe what it felt like. The Saturday night time occasion was technically a present closing out Shanghai Vogue Week, nevertheless it felt not like every other runway I’d ever seen. If something, it felt like one other world.
Since 2018, Moncler has been inviting inventive folks throughout disciplines to work with it for Italian luxurious model’s annual Genius venture. This yr’s 10 picks included designers Rick Owens and Jil Sander, trend editor Edward Enninful, and actor Donald Glover. The day earlier than the occasion, 8,000 friends—together with 1000’s of members of the general public who gained invites—acquired a map of the Metropolis of Genius, every of its neighborhoods dreamed up by a special inventive. Moncler described it as “a metropolis of creativity.”
One trend editor I spoke with in contrast the Shanghai occasion to Coachella, due to the general sprawling expanse, which felt like a pageant grounds. Attendees rushed round, grabbing pals to see completely different “acts” at completely different phases, however as an alternative of music, they had been seeing completely different takes on Moncler’s puffer coats dreamed up by designers. (Though there was music, too: The night ended with a live performance placed on by Canadian singer-songwriter Henry Lau, and Rocky reappeared hours later to carry out on the after-party.)
Another person mentioned it felt extra like Epcot at Disney World due to the manufacturing: neon lights all over the place, friends whipping round in go-karts within the Palm Angels space, meals carts arrayed alongside the paths between “neighborhoods,” and line after line of enthusiastic friends completely satisfied to be there.
I couldn’t assist but in addition take into consideration what it didn’t really feel like: a trend present. Positive, each Rick Owens and Jil Sander had a setup with fashions strolling on a loop akin to the normal catwalk. However that was solely a fraction of what was occurring. Moncler created a trend pageant/amusement park hybrid, with friends starting from Anne Hathaway to members of the general public. (I stood alongside each on the Rick Owens sales space.)
Moncler is understood largely for its puffer coat. However the model has managed to take a utilitarian garment—which many people have early recollections of being coerced into carrying, by involved moms and weather-obsessed dads—and make it not only a image of luxurious but in addition of creativity. The very best a part of the Metropolis of Genius was, after all, respiratory the identical air as Rihanna—but in addition, attending to see how the minds of Rick Owens and Luke and Lucie Meier of Jil Sander rendered the puffer into robes and knitwear lined with down filling.
The inventive collaborators—or “geniuses”—additionally every used the chance to construct a neighborhood round their imaginative and prescient. Willow Smith’s, after all, had oversize willow timber; she and mother Jada Pinkett Smith posed with fashions standing beneath the drooping branches. Glover introduced his Gilga Farm in Ojai, California, to China with a farmhouse facade set atop an orange grove, and confirmed an identical assortment in soothing mild layers and peachy shades. And Enninful felt compelled to create a metropolis optimized for surviving the weather, with two equivalent weather-station units, every immersed in an excessive local weather. Snow coated one, the mannequin pushing away flakes of white whereas clicking away at a pc. The opposite was a heat-showered sand dune, which fashions strolling round slowly, as if getting ready to passing out from publicity. Fittingly, the Moncler × Enninful assortment is made up of 10 appears to be like conceived to resist harsh environments: Sandstorm, Snowstorm, and Windstorm.
As I walked away from the Metropolis of Genius on the finish of the night time, I got here to the belief that there wasn’t an ideal metaphor to sum all of it up. Possibly it actually was a too-good-to-be-true fever dream that by some means turned a actuality I briefly acquired to affix. Everybody laments that the style world has turn into far too formulaic—are you able to blame Moncler for bypassing that world and creating one among its personal?
Each one of many 10 neighborhoods is clearly etched into my reminiscence, however the feeling I gained’t quickly neglect is grabbing a pal’s arm to run to the following cease, giddy with the nervousness of not figuring out what’s in retailer. Who wants a trend present, in any case? Possibly we simply want extra of this type of extravagant fantasies. It’s Genius, in any case.
Tara Gonzalez is the Senior Vogue Editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Beforehand, she was the fashion author at InStyle, founding commerce editor at Glamour, and trend editor at Coveteur.
