Moschino Pre-Fall 2022 Menswear Collection

Last week at the amfAR Gala, Madonna presented Jeremy Scott with the Award of Courage for his commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS. “She was so early on the scene of supporting the gay community. In a time when Lil Nas X is topping the charts singing about bottoming, let’s not forget that there was a time when this didn’t exist,” Scott said on a video call from his kitchen in L.A., reflecting on his milestone. “There was a time when the only person that was a safe refuge was Madonna.”

Growing up, Scott was subjected to severe homophobia. “There wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t called a derogatory name, hit, punched, or spat on because of the way I looked and the way people perceived me. Which was gay. I couldn’t control wanting to express myself from the way I dressed. It was so integral to who I am.” Flicking through his Moschino pre-fall 2022 men’s collection on a share screen, he kept repeating the same words: “It’s about my own fantasy about how I dress, how I’ve dressed in the past, and how I imagine myself.”

In many ways, the collection was very now. Between Scott’s cyberspace-y colors and textures, and the tactility of his hand-spun weaving and quilting, there was a contrast pertinent to the ambivalent desires of a digital youth. Take for instance the hats with demon horns, which brought a popular social media filter into reality, or the robot bear motif, cuddly and mechanical all at once. And yet, it was exactly what Scott said: bold, boisterous clothes founded in the timeless youth-driven impulse to express yourself, especially if you feel different.

Scott imbued the collection with tokens from his own life: his studded leather chokers from the 1990s, certain elements of grunge, a fair amount of techno, and the bling of the 2000s. Through fashion glasses, those things were easily targeted at the TikTok generation, so mysteriously nostalgic for a time they never experienced. From a more universal point of view, they were the elements that continue to make up the thrifty homemade wardrobes of any provincial teenager of a more flamboyant conviction than his peers.

“Fantasy Boys,” read a graphic on a sweatshirt. “So much is going on via screen: fantasy lives, fantasy boys, dressing as you want to dress. That’s why I placed it in Outer Space and made these space cowboys,” Scott said, referring to the backdrops of his look book. In a time when young generations are dealing with the dichotomies between the digital world and reality—and often trying to manifest one into the other—those fantasies felt like a love letter to individuality. A collection like this may not move mountains in fashion, but any gay teenager dying to express himself will find a refuge here.