We are five but the ritual is solid: Sit in a circle. Unzip the plastic bag. Watch the shine slide from the edges to the floor, and then the toys spill out: Spiderman. Superman. Captain America.
They glisten in our gummy fingers and we grab.
The game is sort of secondary – a train blows up, a bridge goes down, whatever – really we just love the plastic. The Hulk’s black hair glows blue in our corduroy folds. The Green Monster has a cape with frozen folds that curve too tight. We know they’re heroes but we think they’re magic, too – perfect pieces of static fun, unreal and stuck in their sphere of Pow! and Pop! and primary hues. And we are magic too, for having them.
And so is Alexander McQueen, I think, for making them again on the runway. The hair so slick it can’t move. The faces so shiny they seem to be wax. And the clothes – stiffly built like suited shields, hugging tight like Spider Suits in secret colors. Light cottons that go “Whoosh” like capes. Pointed ties that can turn into daggers, or flashlights, or tongues.
There are villains too, and just like the toys, they’re bigger and better – giant black trenches that hide sidekicks in the folds. Slinky sweaters for cat burglar sneaking. And swirly suits in purple and grey, an Oceans 11 of flickering thieves and lemon dashed spies.
At the end comes McQueen, the Bruce Wayne of Shoreditch, in a sweater and stubble and a smile that transcends the manufactured.
Save the catwalk, save the world.
[FOR P, IN HONOR OF HIS FIRST WEEK IN FASHION]
