To be physically present in the Via Mecenate studio where Moncler hosted the Milan aspect of today’s five-city digital launch for the next round of Genius collaborations was a kinda mind-frying thing. Right in front of us IRL was Alicia Keys in a black-belted silver knit dress, staring down the barrel of an enormous camera. Behind her, on one of the many ginormous screens that walled the cavernous room, was Victoria Song in a Moncler down jacket. Song’s image was being fed in from a studio in Shanghai, but then being filmed again by that mega-camera in our room, with Keys in the foreground—this is what was being transmitted in the MondoGenius feed.
Between them, this pair of half-a-planet distant comperes framed the presentation. There was surprisingly little lag time between their dialogue, although the dialogue itself was, to be generous, sometimes rather stodgy. A few examples: “Victoria, how can you determine the price of something unique?” or “So what is true? I guess… only your truth.”
In defense of copywriters everywhere, fashioning that link bumph must have been challenging. For as well as connecting Milan and Shanghai via Seoul, New York, and Tokyo, it was also there to inter-contextualize 11 short films designed to whet our appetites for the Genius collections ahead. A few of these—including the collaborations with Alyx, two Genius newcomers, Hyke and Dingyun Zhang, plus the returning prodigal son Palm Angels, are ready to see and should be up on Runway pronto. The others whose films we were treated to today were JW Anderson, the two 1952 collections for men and women, Hiroshi Fujiwara’s FRGMT, the don Craig Green, and another newcomer in Gentle Monster.
For what it’s worth, my mind was most happily fried by these moments: Grenoble’s flying snowboarders introduced by INTO1, Jonathan Anderson’s sensual employment of “Senza Fine” starring Sophie Okonedo and an excellent looking collection, and Matthew Williamson’s partnership with Teezo Touchdown to debut the single “I’m Just A Fan” for the Alyx film. I’m also really excited to see what Green was trialing.
Chatting before the big reveal, Moncler’s mastermind Remo Ruffini said that this event was the result—surprise, surprise—of a Covid-provoked pivot, thanks to the ongoing health security measures in China, where this launch had originally been scheduled as an all-live event. “So we don’t have the crowd and that feeling it gives you. But still, despite all the different elements, what we are doing is very simple. Everyone has a concept, and everyone is making a contribution; sharing their creativity in order to make something new.” Pulling this all together in a few weeks must have been even more mind-frying than watching it—so piuminos off to the MondoGenius massive.