Philipp Plein Spring 2017 Ready-To-Wear

The invitation read “Alice in Ghettoland,” and as the problematic name of the show promised, tonight’s Philipp Plein set was a pastiche: of Lewis Carroll magic mushrooms, of a giant garden troll with “pimp” spelled out across his shirt and Plein’s double-P logo on his hat, of ice cream trucks, of a bare-chested landscaper, and of sudsed-up shirtless car wash men. A quartet of young kids scampered around eating candy and knocking over a lamppost, oblivious to the NC-17 lyrics on the sound system. The handymen who fixed that lamppost wore shirts. Giant carnival swings towered over it all.

How very Spring 2017 in its fashion happening-ness, you may be thinking. True enough, there were echoes of Tommy Hilfiger’s stateside carnival in this evening’s through-the-looking-glass goings-on, but Plein deserves some props for getting in early on the big event idea. He had a roller coaster on his Fall 2015 runway. A year before that he hired Rita Ora to emerge from a smoking car and sing “Facemelt.” Tonight it was Fergie and friends who kicked things off, propped up on the back of a low-rider convertible.

The models who followed wore faded-wash denim tricked out with piles of gold chains, shrunken nylon track jackets and pants, metallic croc suits and matching high-tops, and slinky chain mail. One model carried a bejeweled boom box, nonfunctioning as far as we could tell. If there was a progenitor for this collection, it was Versace; Plein’s show was hip-hop the way Gianni’s safety-pin show of the early ’90s was punk.