Exploring the notions of realities, physicality, distance, and dystopia, Burgess, Palmer and De Javier produced a shoot to emblematise this period: a retreat into the isolated realm of the digital with De Javier’s signature leather pieces from his AW20 collection rendered virtually as armour for a new breed of Tekken character ready for a journey. Industrial underworld surroundings built by Burgess image an alternate reality, an escape into the mind, a trip into the unknown, an opening up of the matrix. As we start to spot the sunlight, Palmer in De Javier’s leather becomes a new M/Orpheus offering us a couple of paths for our journey ahead: we can keep glancing back, drag our past selves to the fore, or else we can imagine new realities, learn from the introspection of this retreat and move our world forward. Unlike Orpheus, let’s leave the past to rest and not look back. Let’s red pill it. Together we will surface, together we rise and re-invent a world anew. Pick your player, choose your path: there is a new world just ahead of us. - Words by Helen Neven
