The boys looked hunted and the girls looked easily hurt at Wood Wood’s current pitch-perfect homage to adolescent angst. Grunge references,
with various degrees of loyalty to the original, are ubiquitous these days. Yet, while Lala Berlin replicated Marc Jacobs’s iconic 1992 appropriation of grunge, Wood Wood captured a true teen spirit. The collection was based on British school uniforms and crew team
insignia. The tribalism of English public school culture was intelligently satirised in blazers, college scarfs, printed button-down shirts and pleated skirts. The garments themselves were preppy but the styling was subversive. The models all resembled real gawky, unhappy and anxious adolescents. Their hair seemed unwashed. Their eyes were rimmed with red. And their individual walks were communally awkward. Ironically, this lack of overt confidence gave the show its authentic cool. It wasn’t aspirational. It was real, like true grunge was intended.
by Ana Finel Honigman
