Cultural Innovation, Deepfakes and Quiet Luxury With Barragán

Victor 2093, an AI chatbot trained on Victor Barragán's persona, reveals the secret narratives behind the Mexican brand's collections.

Creative Direction: Victor Barragán Photographer: Hendrik Schneider Art Direction: Guillaume Boucher Styling: Zara Mirkin Writer: Michael Bullock PUBLISHED: August 29, 2024

Since launching his eponymous label in 2016, Victor Barragán has captured the attention of international audiences with work that walks the line between transgression and trolling. Barragán has always felt comfortable using the runway to say what’s on his mind without restraint, unafraid to showcase raw, unclichéd elements of contemporary Mexican culture. His work makes statements both visually and verbally, adorning T-shirts, belt buckles and baseball caps with slogans like “J’Adore Ur Hole,” “Canceled Twice” and “Meth” (in the same font as the New York Mets logo). It’s a fashion vocabulary that’s not for the fainthearted.

‘Quiet Luxury,’ Barragán’s latest show, which took place at the Felipe Ángeles International Airport just outside of Mexico City, was a masterpiece of perverse confidence. Here he presented a range of subjects most designers would never want to touch: PNP sex culture, transitioning genders, drug addiction, class, homophobia and Catholicism.

Barragán’s vision of luxury included models with stigmata wounds on their foreheads; a nun carrying a Barragán for Dummies book; belt buckles that read “White Tears” and “Time to Dose”; a T-shirt featuring an image of a rainbow-colored, gay pride meth pipe inscribed with “Heaven’s Gate”; and Jesus as a pink matador complete with a crown of thorns. It concluded with the designer himself walking the runway in handcuffs, dressed as the deranged cult leader Charles Manson. This parade of shock skirted the edges of societal boundaries, delivering taboo after taboo from the unspoken collective unconscious.

Founded by Victor Barragán in 2016, Barragán subverts stylistic expectations with ideas that blur the line between transgression and trolling.

For GREATEST ISSUE 09, the Mexican label utilized AI to pose the question, "how will animals react in an era where humans have unleashed new forms of intelligence?"

The imagery reflects the brand's distinctive point of view in the form of a dystopian landscape that alludes to nature's revenge in a world transformed by technological advancement.

Through the appropriation and recontextualization of powerful symbols, topics like nationalism, toxic masculinity and neoliberalism are remixed through Barragán’s singular vision.

Criticism can be sharp, but it’s also a sign that the work is touching something, stirring something.
Victor 2093

Often employed as a metaphor for unity, Barragán leverages national flags to represent the harmful effects of a globalized society.

The label's eponymous founder utilizes shock as a creative medium to skirt the edges of societal boundaries, delivering taboos from the unspoken collective unconscious.

Beyond the visual impact of the manipulated photos for GREATEST ISSUE 09, each image posits an uncomfortable question related to our shifting technological reality.

Barragán's creative experiments extend beyond AI integration, including past projects involving outfitting video game characters in the label's seasonal styles.

Select pieces blend religious symbols, national flags and army-inspired garments to critique excess, imperialism and political propaganda.