“I Know What You Did Next Summer” sounds a razorblade away from stalkerish as a collection title, and there is no doubt that Philipp Plein delights at picking at the screen-protector of conventional fashion “taste.” Yet there was a strong enough logic behind the title, film, and lookbook for this latest episode in PP’s progress.
“I mean I obviously wanted to have a show,” he said over Zoom from his boardroom: “I’m a showman! In fact, at one point I was strongly thinking of doing the show in Paris. But in the end, last minute, I decided to do it digitally because I thought there are lockdowns coming up again, and travel is very difficult. It’s very hard to plan nowadays. And nobody has any idea what is going to happen in Paris.”
On the evidence of this week in Milan, Plein could have thrown a show here—indeed there’s an argument alive on the benches at the moment that those who show will win in next-season market share, should wider circumstances improve—however accommodating his usually several-thousand strong audience would not have been possible.
So instead he transferred his collection to Monte Carlo, obtained a chopper, a speedboat, and a superyacht and set about filming and shooting the 21-look collection you see.
“It’s an example of positive thinking, looking forward to a future we want to have. This could be us next year, living the happy life on the superyacht… We wanted to create a realistic atmosphere to show how they might look like as they travel to the boat on the helicopter. Then they are enjoying themselves during the day on the boat, on the jet ski, or having a drink, or just chilling and sunbathing. And then the whole day ends with a party. The whole idea was to create an easy, happy atmosphere.”
The impressively soundtracked (those licenses don’t come cheap) and drone-heavy film watched like a Plein-costumed reboot of Charlie’s Angels. Divertingly aspirational for have-yachts and have-nots alike, it also suggested that lockdown has served to temper, just a little, Plein’s instinct for ostentation. For while there was no shortage of Swarovski, or leopard print, or platforms, or death’s heads, or fishnets, in the final equation these ingredients added up to a more confidently straightforward expression of Plein-ism. You couldn’t quite call it simple, but it was more considerably designed. As Plein signed off, he said: “At this moment, I think people are starving for positive energy and positive moments. There’s so much negativity all around us.” He’s not wrong there.