There is, at times, a disconnect between the regular ticket-holders at Comic-Con and the famous guests who are invited to speak at the event. One group will spend weeks sourcing elaborate costumes constructed in the precise image of their comic book heroes, while the other will deploy a small team of salaried stylists to source fashion. It is the difference between Emma Corrin wearing a belted dress from Hodakova’s fall 2024 collection and some guy in a Spider-Man onesie.
Perhaps the sole exception at this year’s Comic-Con International was when Robert Downey Jr. appeared on stage in a Doctor Doom costume. He took off an iron mask to announce that he would–gasp!–be playing that same villain in an upcoming Avengers movie. Cue ear-splitting cheers. Florence Pugh–who was also at the San Diego conference to promote Thunderbolts–was never going to participate in such a reveal. The actress posed on a branded step-and-repeat in metallic knee-highs and a draped, crystal-embellished mini from David Koma’s Resort 2025 proposal.
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Photo: Courtesy of David Koma
Back in June, Koma spoke effusively about the artist-muses that informed this collection–among them the Los Angeles sculptor Isabelle Albuquerque and the 1960s supermodel Veruschka, whose anthropomorphic works gave rise to fawn-spotted swimsuits, zebra print column skirts and sinuous dresses stitched with an abundance of cascading raffia to evoke equine manes–but it also felt as though he had turned the lens more directly towards the women he has helped to dress: people like Beyoncé, J.Lo, and Florence Pugh, who have always inhabited a purring, animalistic spirit in his designs. Koma cast Lourdes Leon in an accompanying campaign: chin down, prowling on all fours.