Wacky punk Parisian label Andrea Crews celebrated its tenth year in business with a line for Spring entitled “KITTEN HOLOGRAM,” an installation in the front of a pop-up hotel, featuring their signature conceptual sportswear in Euro dollar prints, and a crop-top tee that also functioned as a beekeeper’s hat. The label has always been unorthodox—designer/visionary Maroussia Rebecq thinks of it as a “fashion art activism” collective (“Everyone is Andrea Crews”), and repurposing found garments is a central tenet to its existence. They’ve been proportioning sweatshirts in cartoonish proportions for years (take note, Commes des Garcons), and their projects blur the line between installation, costume, and silhouettes from the future. To accompany Andrea Crews’ decade-long success, Paris boutique Colette has released a compilation of the music Crews play in their storefront at 25 Rue Vaucouleurs in the 11th arrondissement, and it’s as quirky, surprising, and life-affirming as the label’s garments. Kicking off, appropriately, with punk performance artist Mai Ueda’s a cappella mantra “I Wanna Buy Some Clothes,” there are a couple established faves (Little Dragon, Metronomy), but it stays in the zone of lovable weirdos, mostly French, as with Kumisolo’s food-fetishy “Fondant au Chocolat,” or electro drama king Tez’s stomping “Jawbreaker”; there’s even a little cumbia in the form of “La Cumbia del Estereo” by Lasser Moderna (they’re French, too). It’s an awesome comp to bump while flipping through the accompanying anniversary book, I Am Andrea Crews, a retrospective that compiles all the anarcho-couture collective’s works over the years—crucial for all fashion mavericks. To top it off (and to prove our theory that ten is the most magical number), the styling they did for Mademoiselle Yulia’s “Gimme Gimme” video has just landed them a nomination for best looks at the UK Music Video Awards. The Japanese pop star’s deconstructed shrug is city-girl body armor adorned with a chain of pearls, but that’s nothing compared to the glow-in-the-dark leotards and leaking-eye balaclavas they put on the extras. Andrea Crews, if you don’t win, we’ll shred up all our clothes on tape and mail it to you. Either way, happy tenth, here’s to ten more.
