Here, a dilemma: Rihanna is about as interesting a fashion icon as currently exists. Included in that is her willingness to set trends via daring sensibilities and the ability to make just about anything look great. But does that involve you, as #Navy and a consumer, trying out high-heeled flip-flops?
Rihanna staged her Spring 2018 show for Fenty x Puma in New York on Sunday night, and as usual, she thought big: candy-pink mountain formations served as makeshift dunes for dirtbike pros to perform sky-high stunts—in the video below, a phalanx of frowers have their jaws to the ground—and competitive motocross then served as the inspiration for the typically sporty, flashy collection.
But hark! Upon the first look—flashy bike shorts and a fire-regulation jacket in dusty purple—we are subject to the burning question: how far will we take our love for Rihanna cool, and does that include this footwear, which also seems to include the kind of ankle strap surfers use to attach themselves to their boards? Carine Roitfeld is giving us a true thinking-face emoji.
But then the miraculous, if questionable, happens—as the looks emerge and yet again combine Fenty x Puma’s instinct for combining sports gear with streetwear and making it chic, this footwear starts to make sense? On models, of course, and in this context, but I’m not mad at look four, a tactical bustier dress and the dayglo flops sharp and daring. You know, on Rihanna and various models, though.
All of this is in keeping with the resurgence of 1999-2002 fashion, and that’s exhibited here, too—the kinds of glossy, low-slung breakaway pants you might have worn to a drum and bass rave in a field; coveralls that sit somewhere between Left Eye, a butcher, and the FDNY; super-skin-tight bodysuits in (presumably) lycra, or some other such fascinating millennial textile; and motocross uniforms, of course, that are probably not regulation but can be taken to the street.