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Wild Wild Country
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Mandy Moore is a good celebrity to follow on Instagram. Not only does she sneak in behind-the-scenes pics from her hit show, This Is Us, but she also knows how to craft the perfect style post. Usually, I’ll find myself pausing on her red carpet photos and lifestyle-esque musings to murmur to myself, “Oh, pretty.”
Which is why I was kind of stunned when Moore posted photos of her Wild Wild Country-themed girls’ weekend at Big Sur last night. There she was — along with Minka Kelly, Chase Weideman, Susan Kelechi Watson, and more — clad in the flaming sunset color scheme of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s militantly ardent followers. I even remember thinking, “Huh, they look like members of the Rajneeshpuram.” And then, I noticed Moore’s cheeky hashtag: “#yesourcolorpalettewasinspiredbyrajneeshpuram.”
I kind of didn’t believe it and I still don’t. But Mandy Moore totally had a cult-themed birthday weekend.
I have incredibly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, sartorially they do kind of look great. The burnt orange, dark coral, and mustard yellow color scheme blends together like a stunning style sunset in Instagram photos. Fashion site Racked ironically has a feature today about just how visually striking those 1980s cult fashions are. There’s a reason that Osho’s followers stood apart in their oranges and crimsons and scarlets back then, and there’s a reason why our eye still gravitates towards the palette now. It looks sumptuous to us.
On the other hand, Moore and her chic circle of friends got their fashion inspiration from a cult. Yes, a cult. Not only that, but the Rajneeshpuram successfully launched the biggest bioterror attack on United States soil in history. And there was an assassination plot. Oh, and a real murder. Those fashionable folks are bad people. Would you want to know that your favorite NBC star had a Jonestown massacre-themed fete? (I mean, I’d want to know…because I wouldn’t want it to be true.)
There’s something compelling and sexy and cool about bad people. We like to secretly root for villains. They represent rebellion and transgression and id. And Osho’s followers aren’t the first criminals to inspire fashion trends. Bonnie and Clyde became shorthand for effortless cool in the 1970s and I have jokingly written numerous times how much I like what the drug lords on Narcos wear. But there remains something rather chilling about actual tastemakers gleefully wearing the garb of real criminals while clutching their wine glasses at a fancy resort. It’s hard to tell if they’re being ironic (the way I am when I praise Pablo Escobar’s normcore sailor sweaters), or if they don’t actually get that poisoning hundreds of people via salad bar lettuce is wrong.
Despite being written off as frivolous, fashion is a powerful form of communication. What someone chooses to wear signals something about how they feel or how they wish to be seen. Mandy Moore’s pals banded together to dress up like members of a cult. I don’t actually know what that means. And what might be more worrying? It looks to be an actual trend now.
