One of the fundamental effects that clothing has is to identify and categorise people in the minds of everyone else around them. It serves as one of our basic ways of aligning ourselves with others, a way of belonging to a certain tribe.

While some designers tend to beat to the drum of being on-trend, others have already cultivated their own communities and are even referencing it within their collections.

In the recent Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens and Vivienne Westwood collections you feel that they are speaking in a language that their customers already know and understand. They aren’t one size fits all aesthetics, and it would be a shame if they ever became that way because truly this is what is most powerful about these brands.

Both Owens and Demeulemeester seem to have supplied the gloves for handling large birds of prey.
One thing that connects all three of these collections is that you get a sense that these clothes were actually made by the people walking the catwalk for them to wear themselves. You can almost imagine that they had a part in the way that the clothes were made, as though the look that they are wearing is their individual version of the groups uniform, their own part of the whole aesthetic.

The use of color even seems like it could be a symbol of hierarchy in the group. Maybe you only get to wear the red Demeulemeester fur or the black Owen wings if you are the most powerful high priestess in your village.
And once these pieces are out in the world this is how they will probably be viewed afterall, certain pieces of clothing or accessories will mean nothing to some people but to others of the same cult, they will be like a secret handshake.

Ann Demeulemeester and Rick Owens are exclusive to 4.

Ann Demeulemeester:

Rick Owens:

Vivienne Westwood:

Read the original blog post here on The Cutting Class.