Jeremy Scott exits Moschino after a decade of cheeky, pop culture fashion
Published 21st March 2023
Credit: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images
Jeremy Scott exits Moschino after a decade of cheeky, pop culture fashion
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Written by Jacqui Palumbo, CNN
Moschino creative director Jeremy Scott is stepping down from his role at the Italian luxury fashion house after a decade of irreverent, pop culture-infused collections, according to a statement from the label released Monday.
"These past ten years at Moschino have been a wonderful celebration of creativity and imagination," Scott said in the news release. "I am so proud of the legacy I am leaving behind."
Scott was born in 1975 in Kansas City, Missouri. He grew up partly on a farm in Lowry City and partly in a suburb outside Kansas City. Jeremy was interested in fashion from an early age. At 14, he began studying French and took night courses in Japanese because he was determined to become a fashion designer. In high school, he drew fashion in his notebooks and was bullied because of his dressing style. He discovered runway fashion in Details, looking up to Jean Paul Gaultier, Martin Margiela, Thierry Mugler, and Franco Moschino as role models.[7] In 1992, Scott moved to New York to study fashion design at Pratt Institute, one of the city's Art and Design colleges, where he wore sci-fi-inspired clothes, "1880s vs 1980s" outfits, and shredded and decaying clothes. Scott did an internship in the New York offices of Aeffe, the company that owns Moschino.[1][3][5][6][8]
CareerEdit
Debut in ParisEdit
After graduating in 1996, Scott moved to Paris. While looking for a job in the fashion industry, he was forced to scrounge meals and sleep in the Metro. When he ran into a PR for Jean Paul Gaultier who liked his hair (Scott cut his own hair since he was five), he got a job promoting parties at a nightclub. Not having any luck with fashion jobs, he decided to create his own brand.[3][9]The following season, in 1997, Jeremy Scott, the brand, made its debut in a bar near Bastille. The show was based on the J. G. Ballard book and David Cronenberg film Crash, with most of the material coming from paper hospital gowns. Scraps of fabric from the Porte de Clignancourt flea market resembling garbage bags were used in the follow-up show, all in black, which was described by Scott as "Blade Runner, trash bags and the apocalypse." The collection was later exhibited in the influential Parisian shop Colette, which has carried Jeremy Scott ever since.[1][10]
His third collection, all in white, was a critical hit. It won awards and attracted Mario Testino, the editor of French Vogue, and Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, a French stylist, art director and photographer.[5][11] The white show was the first runway appearance of the soon-to-be-supermodel Devon Aoki, who was only 13 at the time.[12] (Twenty years later, the pair would collaborate again on Scott's Autumn/Winter 2016 campaign.[13]) Björk was an early adopter, wearing an angel dress from the white show for her Homogenic world tour. Scott would provide costumes on several of her tours.[14]
In the same year, Scott made a show about 1980s decadence (sable, shoulder pads, big hair, gold lamé) as maybe the first designer to revive the eighties. The models' unbalanced heels were designed by Christian Louboutin. Opposing the prevalent minimalism, the show was panned by Vogue and others. Scott himself considers "the gold show" as the hardest moment of his career.[15]
HIs 1998 spring collection titled "Duty Free Glamour" featured flight-attendant inspired looks and khaki jackets plastered with logos. Writing in The Times, the fashion critic Cathy Horyn pointed out the original use of the experience of a Midwesterner as a foil to jet set glamour.[5] Karl Lagerfeld said that Scott was the only person working in fashion who could take over Chanel after he left.[16]
In 2001 Scott left Paris for Los Angeles. It was seen as a surprising move, since Los Angeles was not yet a fashion capital at the time.[3]
The Adidas collaborationEdit
Scott had cemented his reputation as a cult label with fervid fans, particularly in Asia,[3] but he was still on the fringe of the fashion establishment, as he was considered neither "serious" nor "commercial".[5] He closed one show in 2001 by throwing fake banknotes with his face printed on them into the audience. At the close of another show, he shouted: "Vive l’avant-garde!", and left yellow T-shirts stamped with the message on every seat.[3]In 2006, Scott started his ongoing collaboration with the French leather-goods company Longchamp, which makes bags for front-row guests at his fashion shows.[5]
Scott first worked with Adidas in 2002 for the "!Signed" project, for which he created a silk jacquard with a motif of money scattered around with his own likeness replacing that of George Washington. The design was on the Adidas classic high top model, the Forum. The shoe was handmade in the Adidas factory in Scheinfeld, Germany. There were only 100 pairs made: 50 went to Scott and 50 went to Adidas. Scott would revisit the design with Money Wings 2.0 in Fall/Winter 2013.[17]
However, his best-known Adidas collaboration came in 2008, when Adidas Originals launched Scott's collection of footwear and apparel that included JS Wings (winged high-tops) and JS Bears (furry sneakers with teddy bear heads).[18] With early co-signs from rappers like Lil Wayne, Scott's footwear gained him mass appeal. His sneakers are considered "some of the most eye-catching sneakers ever seen", making "an indisputable imprint on the shoe landscape".[17][19][20] Over the years, his iconic wings adorned many different Adidas silhouettes. He also applied them to other objects for other clients, including Smart cars and baby prams.[21][22][23][24]
He collaborated with Swatch in 2011, creating three watch designs that were hailed as the return of Swatch to its "uber-fun Eighties roots" with Scott's "pop aesthetic, fun twist and overstated form".[25]
Scott starred in the Adidas 2012 print and video campaign with Nicki Minaj, Sky Ferreira and 2NE1.[26] Madonna's dancers in the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show wore Jeremy Scott track suits for Adidas Originals.[27]
In June 2012, Adidas decided that a pair of sneakers designed by Scott called the JS Roundhouse Mids would not be sold after the shoes were criticised for their bright yellow handcuffs which, as some believed, were "shackles" alluding to slavery.[28] Scott denied that the shoes had anything to do with slavery, stating it was a reference to the children's toy My Pet Monster.[29]
For his Fall 2012 collection, Scott introduced 1990s nostalgia, with several computer references like a printed gloved-hand cursor and '90s-era Mac screenshots.[30] He made a show-closing homage to Lisa Frank with a vacuum-formed plexiglass bustier encrusted in hundreds of Frank stickers.[31]
In February 2013, Scott plagiarized designs from Santa Cruz Skateboards.[32] Santa Cruz and Scott reached a settlement whereby Scott ceased production of his collection.[33]
He debuted his first fragrance for Adidas on February 1, 2015, in a glass replica of his Adidas winged sneakers.[34] In the 2016 film Suicide Squad, the character Harley Quinn wears high-top heels from Jeremy Scott's 2014 collaboration with Adidas.[35]
Creative director at MoschinoEdit
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Dress by Scott
on display at The Met's exhibit Camp: Notes on Fashion
In October 2013 Scott became Moschino's creative director. After turning down several other offers, he chose the Italian label because it had a similarly irreverent approach, its founder Franco Moschino seeing fashion as a form of protest.[3]
In October 2013 Scott became Moschino's creative director. After turning down several other offers, he chose the Italian label because it had a similarly irreverent approach, its founder Franco Moschino seeing fashion as a form of protest.[3]
