Summer not the heatwave one, but the world’s summer that clings to old Britpop rags. Shabby tracksuits and drooping polos with fishtail parkas dragging through the mud like the Gallaghers, priests of nothing and celebrants of noise…

Iceberg, or the runway with its puppets on the podium, parading with arms crossed, hard but empty stares, and shoes in hand against doll-like stilettos replaced by flat, soulless sandals… all this to play “90s youth.” A fake rebellion, collars buttoned up to the throat, for bourgeois ladies as spotless as a sink, with knobby knees discreetly hidden—because the Bible doesn’t make the monk.

And the music—Champagne Supernova—closing the show, nostalgia for the zombies. Of course, it has to be, since the English love their mud as much as their noise. But James Long, the rag maestro, sly as an iceberg, sniffed out Milan and the polite chill of luxury, diving deep and dripping money from every seam and button…

That is the world we applaud, we buy, we forget, and will endlessly reproduce again in 25 years.

FM