For the first 50 minutes of Moschino's scheduled show time in Milan, the jury was still out on whether new creative director Jeremy Scott was the right choice for the job. Audience members, fanning away their heat and hunger, waited patiently first for a tardy Rita Ora and then a painfully late Katy Perry. The mood, it has to be said, was sour. But the minute the first model hit the runway wearing McDonald's golden arches on her pointy-toe pumps with a quilted handbag swinging off her arm like a serving of French fries, all trespasses were immediately forgiven. Jeremy Scott had his audience at the first Happy Meal and yet, the fun only swelled from that first line up of burger-like clothing (which, in a nod to the fast food theme, is already available in a select number of specialty and Moschino stores worldwide). Scott is the king of making bad taste look tantalising and here he played with all manners of trash, from 1980s Versace gilded bondage and SpongeBob SquarePants motifs to the aisles of American mini-marts, where he mined popcorn, gummy bears, Froot Loops, and cheese puffs for his printed cocktail dresses. It is possible that we've never seen a couture-worthy ball gown fashioned out of a can of Budweiser, and it is most definitely the first time we've seen a wedding gown complete with a nutritional facts table. The wit, humour and irony that founder Franco Moschino brought to the notoriously stuffy fashion world is something that has, up until now, been almost impossible to replicate. But now we see this sliver of pure fantasy in the open heart of Scott, a designer whose enthusiasm is entirely infectious. With this debut, Scott managed the quickest and sharpest turn around in an audience's mood that we have yet to witness, ever, at a fashion show. Even the most jaded of fashion editors could not suppress their smiles, or at least a toe-tap or two, at the resounding finale.
