Gareth Pugh’s New Fashion Film Is What Happens When FKA Twigs & ‘Twin Peaks’ Meet

Sight is rendered obsolete. Bodies converge through clay. Gaping golden holes appear where mouths should be. Dancers shake, rattle, and collapse on top of one another. No, this isn't some outtake from FKA twigs' 2016 Halloween performance with Veuve Clicquot; nor is it some David Lynch project. It's Gareth Pugh's Spring/Summer 2018 collection, presented as a 16-minute-long fashion video.

Instead of a London Fashion Week runway, Pugh teamed up with Nick Knight and SHOWstudio to unveil his latest. As usual, it toes the intersection between fashion, wearability, and art. For 2018, though, Pugh and Knight embued the architectural collection with a hefty amount of the grotesque. "I didn’t want to make a fashion film," Pugh tells WWD. "I wanted to make something that went a lot deeper."

Indeed, the image of Pugh's clay-covered naked body splayed out on a table while anonymous figures tear the clay body apart is more Twin Peaks: The Return than anything. (Plus, there's the whole "Diane" Eyes thing going on...) Add in the layers of choreography, and you've got yourself a FKA twigs music video. Oh, there are clothes there, too; good luck trying to figure out which is which. They're a striking red and impeccably structured. If Björk wasn't living her Gucci fantasy, these looks would be right up her alley. This is fashion engulfing the human form. This is not a show. It's the future and that future is, well, jarring. Regardless, it's good to see there are designers out there still willing to really go there—even if the "there" isn't as polished and pretty.