Late Franco Moschino became one of the best known iconoclasts of our time by making fun of fashion victims. His creations decorated with tongue-n-cheek logos (“Stop the Fashion System”) and visual gags (plastic croissants, bottle caps and safety pins) evoked philosophical ideals geared towards challenging the establishment. Today, sans the self-deprecating humor and theatrical visuals of Franco, the surreal essence of Moschino is lost. What remains is a strange, undecipherable mélange of unrelated influences worked into a meaningless procession of clothes. Unfortunately, the audience is no longer laughing with Moschino.

The sparkly chiffon dress and metal studded mini leather capelet ensemble that kicked off the show was an ominous beginning indeed, but little did everyone know that things would quickly go from bad to worse. The show’s seemingly never ending display of big blouson tops with leg of mutton sleeves, nipped waist coats featuring scalloped collars covering the shoulders, WWII military officer jackets, velvet cuffed Capris, and silk neck-tie blouses was reminiscent of a nonsensical dream sequence from a bizarre Matthew Barney (for those of you who don’t know him, suffices to say that he is Bjork’s partner) film.

In the Franco years the Moschino name resonated with an inimitable sense of irony. In light of that, the only viable --sort of --explanation to the madness we witnessed on the Moschino runway this season might be a Socratic reverse-irony. Meaning (bear with me here) the collection’s genius parody of the ridiculous fashion folk (the hedonistic editors, mindless consumers, and self-obsessed models) is so deep that it is lost to us. But quite frankly, let’s not overestimate this collage of uninspired clothes.