Amazon.com Review

Fashion is rarely seen as a forum for communication. However, Italian fashion designer Franco Moschino has long used it as his soapbox. Moschino, a collaboration with graphic designer Luca Stoppini, presents his shop window, rather than his clothing, as the vessel for communication. Taking cues from the bold graphics of Moschino's designs--such as the shirt that proclaims "For fashion victims only" and the bathing suit that shouts "SAVE OUR SEA"--each shop window is an elaborately constructed message. Organized into months, the book traverses 12 years 12 times, living and reliving the years between 1989 and 2000 as if a camera were in front of the shop window all that time, recording these installations. There is not much more offered beyond this series of photographs, so it is not quite a fashion book, nor is it a book about designing shop windows, yet it shows the potential of both to speak, and loudly. --Juliette Cezzar

Product Description

Designed by Luca Stoppini, art director of the Italian edition of "Vogue," this book presents the original, multicoloured, extravagant and transgressive fashion universe of Moschino using a decade of scintillating and often provocative shop windows.

From the ideal woman (Violeta, 1990; Old? New?, 1991) to the vamp (Stop the Fashion System!, 1990; Halloween, 1991); from the theme of world peace (Nobel peace prize?, 1990; No War!, 1998) to a love for animals (I_animals, 1994) and a defence of nature (Love Nature and Nature_you, 1993); from respect for the environment (Ecouture!, 1994) to the battle against AIDS (Smile!, 1992; Safe Sex, 1994) and against social, cultural and inter-racial discrimination (Nord _ Sud, 1994; Love, Peace and...Mix Appeal, 1997)...March 1989 saw the opening of Moschino's first boutique in Via Sant'Andrea in Milan, which provided Franco Moschino with another formidable means of communication-- the shop window.

The shop window was the natural continuum of the shop, but also new surroundings to be dressed, the stage for regular mise-en-scène, another chance for direct contact with the public, an ideal point of observation and a strong means of communication. It could be used to launch messages, moods and opinions, moving-- as in a game of chess-- the pawns of his transgressive imagery and revealing his philosophy of style in an autonomous and alternative manner.