Since its founding some 20 years ago, Imitation of Christ, a collaborative platform for fashion and art and environmental responsibility, has often been way ahead of the industry. Too early, in fact, to get credit for such disruptions as upcycling (in the year 2000) and shows-as-performance (the brand followed up their funeral show with a red-carpet arrival presentation for fall 2001). This season finds Tara Subkoff exactly on time as she presents a fall collection of digital wearables, created with Adam Teninbaum, lead VFX and animation director at AST.NYC, that exists only in the metaverse. (There’s a possibility that some of these web 3 renderings will be made into garments at a later date.)
Because so much of what IOC has done is DIY and hands-on, from the selection and splicing of vintage to silk-screening, this jump into technology seems especially dramatic; but at the same time it’s entirely in keeping with Subkoff’s restless curiosity and fascination with what’s next—and what fashion can be and do.
When Subkoff jumpstarted IOC again in 2020, she did so, she said on a call, “as a platform to collaborate,” and she worked with a rotating cast of young creative directors, fostering and mentoring their talents. The attractions of the metaverse for Subkoff are many and include its reach and inclusivity. “The thing that’s really fun about this is that you can really define physics, gravity, and play in different realms,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about fit as much; anyone can wear this—your avatar can wear this, [or] someone else’s, and I think that’s pretty fun too. Also the carbon footprint of producing these is limited.”
Subkoff is also passionate about the ability to be cause-driven in the metaverse. For fall she collaborated with the photojournalist Lynsey Addario, some of whose images relating to climate change and the California wildfires are projected onto Subkoff’s designs.
Surprisingly for a vintage hunter, Subkoff has been a sci-fi buff since childhood. Her father ran an antique store across the street from comic shop Forbidden Planet, where she escaped into other worlds. She seemed to have resurfaced that in this collection, which has a futuristic aesthetic, and includes what look like liquid metal hoodie dresses with various graphics, one in the characteristic IOC “font.” Apart from that small touch, most of the designs in this collection bear little resemblance to the brand’s past work, though some volumes seemingly nod to Valentino’s collaboration with Moncler. Subkoff took a go-for-it approach to these designs—essentially tech versions of paper dolls—taking advantage of the endless possibilities of the medium.
This IOC collection will be part of Decentraland’s Fashion Week in March, which perhaps is a better fit than on the New York schedule, because they require different criteria of review. While this project is in alignment with the brand’s ethos, the aesthetics are a world apart from most of what has come before. Subkoff has always made us confront the past in relation to the present. She’s challenged fashion’s fascination with the new and multiples, producing one-off pieces shown via multimedia spectacles, be that a show on an escalator, or simultaneous events in New York and Los Angeles. IOC has been inimitable in the way that Subkoff has been able to use clothes as vehicles for concepts. As progressive as this project is in some ways, in others it seems to be stuck in neutral, always accessible and at the same time out of reach.
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