While slow fashion is slowly becoming a movement on its own, the collaboration between Opening Ceremony and Yoko Ono could be considered the slowest of all.

The collection ‘Fashions For Men’ was initially a collection of sketches given by Yoko Ono back 1969 to her late husband John Lennon as a wedding present. The sketches depicted her adoration for John. Emphasizing particular fetishes for certain body parts, most notably but not surprising – his balls, butt crack, crotch and love handles. Unfortunately her endearing though conceptual proclamation of love for John never saw the light of day until 43 years later when she teamed up with Opening Ceremony to bring this collection to live as a limited edition.

While looking at the employees of Opening Ceremony sporting the limited edition of only 53 pieces I couldn’t help to imagine Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece. A performance she first performed back in 1964 in Japan, where she sat motionless on a stage inviting the audience to come up and cut away her clothing. Though a simple act, the performance introduced a conceptual notion of the exchange between exhibitionism and desires of victim and attacker, sadist and masochist – unveiling the relationship of male and female subjects as objects for each other. Not to say that the ‘Fashions For Men’ collection carries any of these more in depth heavy conceptual statements, but it is interesting to notice that in the design transformation from sketch to garment it relies much on the simple act of literal translation, rather than creating an interpretation of it. The design team of Opening Ceremony understood well.

The final result is a tongue-in-cheek collection that kind of tastes like 1990ies rave culture with peek-a-boo derriere suit pants, scrotum print sweatshirts, Perspex neck piece with hotel style ‘ring for service’ nipple bells, hand touching crotch pants and a cumber band jock-strap to name few. Yeah, I know the references are all over the place but this collection does prove that art as a departure can present something ridiculously out of fashion that is in fact timeless.

Images courtesy of Opening Ceremony