RP/Encore is a female/male accessories range made not for fashion victims but out of fashion victims. Californian girl Reid Peppard is a London based designer who uses rodent and bird taxidermy to create head pieces, cuff links, necklaces and coin purses.
No need to fear the PETA though when you are wearing RP/Encore. The dead pets have either succumbed on the road, through pest control or simply died natural deaths.
I'm in two minds about these pieces...I find them amazing and daring and they definitely have that "car accident" effect of "looking-grosses-me-out-but-I-can't-help-myself". On the other hand I just find the thought of wearing a dirty London rodent around my neck pure filth.
I love the controversy of this collection though. Peppard challenges our views on fashion:
Most members of the fashion world have no qualms to wear a dead fox or rabbit in the form of a jacket as you can't tell what the animal once was and these animals, for some reason, are seen as objects of luxury even though they roam around in dirt and catch diseases just like rats and mice do. Peppard though, by recycling the city's leftovers, and by altering the animal only by removing its insides makes the actual common use of animals in fashion an uncomfortable experience for us.
I also think Peppard is on to something with her dead fashion...as fashion "dies" every six months to make room for the next new trend, its life expectancy lower than that of a mice living in the underground, it just makes sense to wear something that is already dead...if its dead it can't die anymore and maybe this could be a trend made to last.
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