SSS World Corp. recently held a fashion show for its fall-winter 2020 collection directly on Route 66 in the Mojave Desert near Amboy, California.
According to GQ magazine, SSS World mogul Justin O’Shea invited only three guests to the December event, and one was his wife. But GQ’s editor-in-chief, Will Welch, was able to snag an invitation.
Here’s a video about the fashion show:
One of GQ’s staff writers interviewed Welch about the experience:
“We drove three hours and change, way out to Route 66 in the Mojave desert. Not long before we got there, I saw a sign that said, ‘Joshua Tree: 46 miles that way.’
“So we’re driving down old Route 66, the most legendary road in America, and way up ahead I saw these ‘road closed’ signs, and I was like, he did not close down Route 66, but that’s what they’d done. They closed down a mile of Route 66. So we pulled up and saw the speakers set up and a couple of microphones. We got out of the car and joined Justin’s partner Veronika, who was there with their baby, Walter. The three of us stood there with our coolers full of water and Diet Coke across from the karaoke set up. Then the runway show started.
“The models started about a mile down. A bunch of them were on Harleys and then there was a big GMC pickup truck full of dudes hanging off it Mad-Max style.
“They all roared up about 1,000 feet down the road, and then got off the Harleys and the truck and there was a proper fashion line up. Then Jesse Hughes started shredding AC/DC. He was crushing it. It was very Wedding Singer meets desert roadhouse bar meets AC/DC. And then they walked, and then they all climbed back on the motorcycles and on the truck and hauled ass off, and that was it.”
Welch likely was incorrect about one thing: O’Shea hadn’t closed the road. Welch probably was looking at long-standing “Road Closed” signs because flash flooding wiped out a bunch of bridges on Route 66 between Chambless and Essex several years ago.
According to GQ’s reporting, O’Shea loves Harley-Davidson motorcycles and has a rebel streak a mile long. So ditching the fancy-schmancy runways of Milan and Paris in favor of a cracked, gritty Route 66 asphalt shouldn’t be much of surprise.
(Screen-capture image from Brian Overend video of SSS World Corp. fashion show on Route 66)
Although you’re right of course about the signs, it doesn’t really help the story – of which some elements surrounding are always partially rooted in mythical notoriety. And so it has always been for those who have dared to occupy the vast expanse of the world’s forbidding deserts… Regardless, this is the most badass runway show I’ve ever seen! Jesse Hughes is the lead singer for The Eagles of Death Metal, who originated out of Palm Desert. The song is Green Machine by the legendary Desert Metal band Kyuss, of similar origin. There’s a connection there for those that know, so let me assure you, this is all correct and deliberate. In fact, one would argue it’s nearly 30 years in the making… Thanks for sharing this epic story!