DIESEL
CODE: DAY-GLO!
Style landmarks of this highly colourful lingo.
FACTORY BEATS
Neon colour emerged, as if out of a black hole, from Soho’s radical lofts at the epicentre of New York’s thriving underground scene in the early Eighties. It was here that young Stephen Sprouse, protégé of Andy Warhol who called the shots on so many reputations, invented a fashion that we would now call streetwear, influenced by early hip-hop beats, Keith Haring and, of course, the golden era of nightclubs.
DAY-GLO GO-GO!
The British pop scene, true to its vocation, picked up on the day-glo phenomenon and exposed the makeup of teen band Wham! under black spotlights.
FLASHY BY DAY, NEON BY NIGHT
Italy in the mid-Eighties: a fun movement, the antithesis of the international image of decorous Italian elegance, grew up around Elio Fiorruci. Artistically, it was inspired by the cartoon strips of the Fifties, but seen through the prism of Italian disco, and here too, the clubbing scene of the renowned «Plastic» and vast nightclubs at Riccione on the Adriatic Coast. Day-glo also made its debut on the beach in flamingo prints and mind-blowing ices.
Parisian runways were a riot of black and neon, in a feverish tribute to the heyday of the «Palace» nightclub.
TECHNO FUEL AND NEON-CLAD CLUBBERS
The Nineties worshipped and embodied the ‘less is more’, which did not, however, prevent a cohort of designers descended the North from eradicating this austerity with a slash of highlighter.
From acid house to rave parties, dance music adopted the neon smiley as an iconic rallying call.
Indeed, the last Diesel fashion collection humorously masterminded a flashy fluorescent FLASH FOR FUN line to be flaunted on the dance floors of the entire world.
Passing generations have prolonged the techno spirit, born twenty years ago in a series of often short-lived cultural jolts, which triggered fashions that have inspired teenagers of both sexes. From Harajuku girls, over-tanned manga babes to London’s neon-clad clubbers, it’s like a flash in the night, in the gloom of boredom and jaded senses, aiming a well-directed kick up the backside of the established canons of good taste.
.via.
(clic on pic to enlarge for better view)
