A brown house moth, Hofmannophila pseudospretella, flutters its wings and travels closer to a lighted candle in ever-decreasing circles, inching towards certain death.

This danse macabre of summer is set in motion when the moth’s navigational system confuses candlelight for the moon. We might laugh at the moth’s stupidity, wasting its life hovering around naked bulbs and deadly flames when it could be searching for food or a fuck.

But the truth is that we’re no less immune than the hapless moth to the same fatal attraction. What Freud called the ‘death drive’ is enacted and reenacted every day by millions of us, drawn irresistibly to 101 forms of self-destruction and dangerous pleasure.

It’s there in the reckless pursuit of sex and drugs when the id takes over, demanding to be entertained. Helpless to resist, we answer this dark, mysterious call and fly into the fire again and again. We’re pulled relentlessly towards amusements and the fear-arousing indulgences we know are bad for us, eager to straddle the borderline between life and death, even if there’s a risk we’ll be swallowed whole by the latter. And if we’re not doing it to ourselves, we might be doing it to someone else. Those nefarious twins, sabotage and self-sabotage, coexist within all of us.

These are the recurring motifs of SS23 menswear, staged within a groovy, lurid cataclysm where the characters, propelled by events beyond their control, must contend with existential threats like madness, annihilation and grizzly, premature death. They are at the mercy of strange and tenebrous desires and only a last-minute caprice of fate might save them. There are scar-like zips across suiting, placed crudely and ready to be ripped open in mimicry of the ripping off of a scab when, in a moment of torment someone longs for the purging feeling of pain. We’re taking something beautifully finished and then rending it asunder. This is radical self-sabotage translated into clothing.

There are flavours of glam-punk, with los of silks and metallics, fiery tones and the JORDANLUCA mainstays like kilts, bomber jackets, suiting and extended trousers that drag at the back to create a long, languid silhouette.