Simon Costin knows all about pushing the boundaries of catwalk show sets, having been set designer for the Gareth Pugh brand for the last eight years and the man behind Alexander McQueen’s infamous Spring/Summer 1998 show Untitled (aka The Golden Shower). He’s also acutely aware of their practical limitations, but what if there were no limitations? What if he really could, for example, stage a show in an abandoned nuclear power plant?
Simon Costin’s Impossible Catwalk Shows steps outside the realms of possibility and into a set designer’s fantasy world, where nothing is off limits, and the only boundaries are the limits of the imagination. Where real locations are impossible, Costin has created his own versions, such as that nuclear plant, a concrete hulk transformed with a crust of jewels as the collection inside degrades. Clothes hang from the ceiling of a grubby sanatorium, viewed through a slit like patients or prisoners. Models perch in the trees of a forest, with the audience invited to pick them out with binoculars. The sets are being shown at the London College of Fashion’s Fashion Space Gallery, along with a moodboard showing Costin’s working process. Sashay over there before 13 December.
