Gretchen Weiner couldn't make "fetch" happen, but she's not Jeremy Scott. Moschino's hype piper fuels trends like pre-Fendi fuzzy keychains, logo-jammed backpacks—and now he's launching slang into the stratosphere.
"Everything is going to be tasty," he declares, using Moschino's new Candy Crush collab merch (most with the T-word stamped across the front) as proof. "Instead of saying a look is chic, you can say it's tasty. Or you can say, Katy Perry's new single is tasty…the reason I like it is because it's positive, but it also sounds a little naughty. It's harmless…but is it?"
That description sounds a lot like Candy Crush itself. A sugar rush of a puzzle, the game has nearly 100 million players—but no saved graphics that were big enough for Moschino's textile mill. "Making the collection was a lot trickier than you'd think," Scott says. "The Candy Crush team didn't have all the [high definition] art available. So we had to create the pattern from scratch, but make it look exactly like the screen on your phone. It took time, to be honest with you."
But time is a scarce resource for Scott these days, thanks to his constant collections for Moschino and his eponymous line, plus projects for Barbie, Google, and other big brands. With designer burnout becoming its own trend, how does he buck the cycle of making stuff…and more stuff… and more stuff?
"For me, it's actually the opposite," he says. "Back when I had a two shows a year, I used to have post-partum depression afterwards—I felt empty and horrible, like something was missing from my body. I don't have that anymore because I'm always working on something. And I feel like collection ideas and visual themes are kind of like conversations. They're liasons…if you have an idea and it's not working, it's like a subway. You just get on the next one."
And for the first time in a while, models are becoming a part of the creative process. "When I designed the watch dress, I knew it would go on Bella," he says. "I don't know how, I just did. In the early collections, I would draw every single model in every single look. It usually started with Devon [Aoki], and it was this site-specific thing: 'Okay, Devon's going to be wearing this look, so let's cut it this way.' You look at my old sketches and they have Devon, Coco [Rocha], every single model's name on them.
"I haven't done that in a while, but now with Gigi and Bella—because I launched them, I've had a long time getting to know them and seeing how they work, and what kinds of looks work best with them," says Scott. "It's crazy but all the Hadids started with me! Gigi's first time on the runway was at the Jeremy Scott show; she opened and closed it. And then Bella started with me, and we had [their brother] Anwar for his first time, too. It's like losing your virginity," he laughs. "You never forget it."
Does that mean as Scott's VIP BFFs, they now get unlimited Candy Crush lives? "That is an excellent question. I should have put that in my Candy Crush contract. It's like, other people have a gravy train. We have the candy train."
Sounds tasty.
