
Still, Miguel Adrover&amp;#8217;s first collection demonstrated how junk could be recycled into profit, and his second collection shown in &nbsp;New York (Spring&ndash;Summer 2001) made more explicit American references by trawling through recent American history, making a &amp;#8216;tiger&amp;#8217;s leap&amp;#8217; back to the Vietnam war and to hip-hop and rap culture, drawing on a mish-mash of American motifs that included native American and&nbsp;prairie&nbsp;styles as well as urban street culture and baseball references. It featured a strong military look that was influential until the events of 11 September 2001 effectively put an end to the military look that Adrover had shown on the catwalk a yera before. The unforeseen &amp;#8216;developer of the future&amp;#8217; that Benjamin argued can change the meaning of imagery in the future did its work. Adrover&amp;#8217;s two collection immediately prior to 11 September took traditional Middle Eastern dress as the theme. Three motifs can be seen: worn clothing, the archetypal American Coca Cola logo, and Middle Eastern dress. Adrover all but lost his business after his Spring&ndash;Summer 2002 collection was shown in New York on 9 September 2001 as his backer the Leiber Group (formerly Pegasus) sought a buyer for the company. Perhaps appropriately, for a designer whose fortunes went mercurially from rags to riches and back to rags again in only two years, Adrover had claimed &amp;#8216;the American way of life&amp;#8217; as his inspiration for Spring&ndash;Summer 2001, and Saks on Fifth Avenue had claimed that the collection marked a turning point in &amp;#8216;American street couture&amp;#8217;. And these articulations of &amp;#8216;American-ness&amp;#8217; were not incompatible with the patriotism invoked in New York fashion industry that followed a year later in the wake of 11 September 2001.
Miguel Adrover, Fall&ndash;Winter 2001&ndash;2002, Photography Roberto Tecchio, courtesy Judith Clark Costume

Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and Deathliness&nbsp;by Caroline Evans,&nbsp;Yale University Press