That said, the pandemic hasn’t cramped our creativity. For Chiuri, the lockdown period motivated a thought-provoking exuberance. While many designers focused on an “essential” wardrobe for our re-emergence this autumn, the Christian Dior designer – already at home in that territory – turned to fantasy as therapy. She showed some of her most captivating work for the house in a collection informed by the dark side of fairy tales, lining the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles with smudged, thorny mirrors by the artist Silvia Giambrone. “I prefer the original fairy tales. The references are scary. It’s a way to teach young people what happens in the world, a way to prepare them for the future,” she said.
Chiuri’s film was an apropos statement on our heightened relationships with mirrors, screens and the image staring back at us: the digital narcissism of the confinement period. Pure post-lockdown psychology, the collection expressed a longing for opulence suppressed by strict austerity. On one side, stringent tailoring in the humble fabrics of menswear, performance-y puffers, and in rigid military codes that embraced our rediscovered appetite for the great outdoors. Conversely, Chiuri contrasted her pragmatism with the temptation of fairy tale dressing: riding hoods, capes, decidedly Grimm red looks, and Alice in Wonderland’s prim dress rendered dangerously in leather. “People don’t just want functionality and timelessness. They want desire, too,” she said.
Chiuri’s film was an apropos statement on our heightened relationships with mirrors, screens and the image staring back at us: the digital narcissism of the confinement period. Pure post-lockdown psychology, the collection expressed a longing for opulence suppressed by strict austerity. On one side, stringent tailoring in the humble fabrics of menswear, performance-y puffers, and in rigid military codes that embraced our rediscovered appetite for the great outdoors. Conversely, Chiuri contrasted her pragmatism with the temptation of fairy tale dressing: riding hoods, capes, decidedly Grimm red looks, and Alice in Wonderland’s prim dress rendered dangerously in leather. “People don’t just want functionality and timelessness. They want desire, too,” she said.
Within the duality of Chiuri’s collection, there was a very relevant reflection on our transition back into a life of possibilities. A reminder, perhaps, to approach excess with caution. When it comes to the post-lockdown wardrobe, Miuccia Prada is similarly interested in our emotional ambivalence to dressing. This season, her Prada collections have illustrated an internalised-externalised fashion mentality to which we can all relate coming out of a year of domestic dressing. Captured epically in high snow in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites, her Miu Miu collection took that emotion to an extreme. “I walk a lot in the mountains and when it’s bad weather, it’s difficult. Little by little, I realised what I was trying to say: bravery. The dream to do something that’s important and difficult. The clothes are not romantic but the spirit is,” she said.
Prada sees our re-emergence as something daring and expresses it in a post-confinement wardrobe many will identify with: a desire to hide and dress up all at once. Through a literal lens, it was the most obvious transition from indoor to outdoor dressing you could imagine: a code-switch between lingerie and skiwear. Figuratively, it was post-confinement psychology: a material outpouring of our mental state of undress and the compulsion to cover it up and put our best (and furriest) foot forward. Padded bustiers and bodies proposed alongside silk-satin slip dresses – some with aggressive spiky straps – conceived a kind of alpine lingerie (“For me, very sexy stuff,” Prada said) juxtaposed by mittens and mountain boots fit for a faux fur yeti.
Prada sees our re-emergence as something daring and expresses it in a post-confinement wardrobe many will identify with: a desire to hide and dress up all at once. Through a literal lens, it was the most obvious transition from indoor to outdoor dressing you could imagine: a code-switch between lingerie and skiwear. Figuratively, it was post-confinement psychology: a material outpouring of our mental state of undress and the compulsion to cover it up and put our best (and furriest) foot forward. Padded bustiers and bodies proposed alongside silk-satin slip dresses – some with aggressive spiky straps – conceived a kind of alpine lingerie (“For me, very sexy stuff,” Prada said) juxtaposed by mittens and mountain boots fit for a faux fur yeti.
Virginie Viard must have had similar considerations. Her Chanel collection fused the “ambiance of ski holidays, which I adore, and a certain idea of cool Parisian chic, from the 1970s to now”. Filmed in the fabled Castel nightclub, the brand’s president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky told me the digital show was a tribute to the life we miss: “It’s about tomorrow. It’s about happiness. It’s about social life. It’s about energy. And that energy is what we want to see all around – in the boutiques, but more importantly, in social life.” For Chanel, there’s no question about it: “In the future, I think we’ll continue to do a mix of a live show and more sophisticated, inspiring images for those who can’t come to see the show. As a brand, we need to connect as much as possible. For us, that’s six times a year. Our customers want to feel this sense of novelty,” Pavlovsky said, promising an imminent return to runways and audiences.
So strong was our longing for fashion week’s classic runway format and the clarity it embodies that some designers transmitted their shows live. For the third time during the pandemic, Rick Owens went on the air from his second home in Venice’s Lido – close to his factories in Concordia – staging a show on a heli-pier on the beach outside his apartment. His collection embodied the caution of our time, in armouring leather and cashmere bodysuits – some sequined like a hyper-glamorous shield – and broad-shouldered power coats. “I’m certainly not making proclamations about how these clothes are the way forward. I’m more full of questions of concern,” he told me. “I don’t understand why I’m the only designer – or one of few designers – showing masks. I mean, are we all pretending that doesn’t exist? The conditions we’re living under… Are we just pretending it’s not there?”
So strong was our longing for fashion week’s classic runway format and the clarity it embodies that some designers transmitted their shows live. For the third time during the pandemic, Rick Owens went on the air from his second home in Venice’s Lido – close to his factories in Concordia – staging a show on a heli-pier on the beach outside his apartment. His collection embodied the caution of our time, in armouring leather and cashmere bodysuits – some sequined like a hyper-glamorous shield – and broad-shouldered power coats. “I’m certainly not making proclamations about how these clothes are the way forward. I’m more full of questions of concern,” he told me. “I don’t understand why I’m the only designer – or one of few designers – showing masks. I mean, are we all pretending that doesn’t exist? The conditions we’re living under… Are we just pretending it’s not there?”
At Hermès, Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski joined in on the live action with a relay between New York, Paris and Shanghai where dancers interpreted the movement that activates our clothes – the freedom we hope to gain back this autumn. Her collection was a careful study of post-lockdown dressing founded in the idea of the wardrobe reset: stripping down our relationship with fashion to its basic needs, and rebuilding it from there. “I’m interested in the construction of clothes. I’m interested in creating new classics,” she told me, demonstrating a parka morphed into a poncho. For her first Chloé collection, Gabriela Hearst hybridised that same garment with puffer collars, setting a collage-y tone for a collection that culminated in some padded mega-coats patchworked from repurposed Chloé overstock spanning designers and eras.
Investigating how the past year in confinement might impact the way we’ll want to dress coming out, Nicolas Ghèsquiere steered his ever-fuelled time machine to the ultimate reset: Ancient Greece, that long-lost world upon which this new one was built. “It’s the projection between dressing for others and dressing for yourself. This collection is a juxtaposition of those two feelings,” he told me, describing Louis Vuitton garments loosely inspired by antiquity, cut and padded for comfort and “over-decorated” with embellishments and prints. “What you used to wear for yourself will now be mixed with what you wear to socialise,” Ghesquière said. “The idea of comfort is luxurious and beautiful, but not often associated with great fashion interaction. I went there with this collection. It’s absolutely possible.”
Investigating how the past year in confinement might impact the way we’ll want to dress coming out, Nicolas Ghèsquiere steered his ever-fuelled time machine to the ultimate reset: Ancient Greece, that long-lost world upon which this new one was built. “It’s the projection between dressing for others and dressing for yourself. This collection is a juxtaposition of those two feelings,” he told me, describing Louis Vuitton garments loosely inspired by antiquity, cut and padded for comfort and “over-decorated” with embellishments and prints. “What you used to wear for yourself will now be mixed with what you wear to socialise,” Ghesquière said. “The idea of comfort is luxurious and beautiful, but not often associated with great fashion interaction. I went there with this collection. It’s absolutely possible.”
As far as fashion is concerned, the only good thing to come out of the pandemic is how it has inspired and pushed designers to rethink their approaches to how we dress and what we dress for. At Loewe, Jonathan Anderson made a high-spirited case for how optimistic colours and cuts can impact the spirit. At Lanvin, Bruno Sialelli recorded a post-lockdown version of Gwen Stefani’s video for Rich Girl to highlight his own optimistic proposal for autumn: a done-up and sexed-up but streamlined elegance founded in sumptuous emblems of richness like leopard prints, gem colours, thigh-high boots and drapey cocktail dresses. “It’s second-degree. It’s ‘If I was a rich girl’,” he told me, reflecting on the break we all want from our dreary lockdown lifestyles. Other designers expressed a similar sense of escapism, taking a resolute step out of the crisis.
Three seasons after her house was bought by Capri Holdings, Donatella Versace debuted a new monogram in the vein of Goyard’s chevrons or Moynat’s infinite Ms. In her film, the pattern had been blown up into a massive wooden structure that framed a runway-style show. Here, models effectively walked through monograms wearing monogram clothes, carrying monogram bags, and accessorising with monogram jewellery. It didn’t just express a longing to get back to real life, but to get back to shopping. That feeling was conveyed at Givenchy, too, where Matthew M Williams covered garments in monogram in a sophomore collection for the house that felt tailored to the social media generation. “At the end of the day, it goes back to instinct and what I desire. I’m not so strategic. Hopefully the customer likes what I like,” he told me.
Three seasons after her house was bought by Capri Holdings, Donatella Versace debuted a new monogram in the vein of Goyard’s chevrons or Moynat’s infinite Ms. In her film, the pattern had been blown up into a massive wooden structure that framed a runway-style show. Here, models effectively walked through monograms wearing monogram clothes, carrying monogram bags, and accessorising with monogram jewellery. It didn’t just express a longing to get back to real life, but to get back to shopping. That feeling was conveyed at Givenchy, too, where Matthew M Williams covered garments in monogram in a sophomore collection for the house that felt tailored to the social media generation. “At the end of the day, it goes back to instinct and what I desire. I’m not so strategic. Hopefully the customer likes what I like,” he told me.
Olivier Rousteing launched his Balmain labyrinth monogram seasons ago, but the wanderlust he’s felt in lockdown gave him an opportunity to put the bags it graces front and centre. Captured in the Air France hangar in Paris, his collection interpreted the trademarks of the aviation wardrobe in a post-lockdown proposal that felt more pragmatic than the glitz and glamour we normally associate with Balmain. It reflected a year of change that continues to impact Rousteing’s work. “People might see the labyrinth as a commercial move. To me, it’s a timeless move,” he told me. “I want to turn Balmain into a real timeless house that’s about quality and luxury and the story. It’s not only about Instagram followings, even though that’s important, too.”
Along with Versace and Givenchy, Balmain produced the kind of big-budget video that’s now making fashion shows look more like Super Bowl commercials. To me, the grandiosity of it felt like a massive expression of the longing for the real runway that’s come to a boil. As Dan Caten of Dsquared2 told me early this season, “The crowd, the music, the show… being backstage! That’s what I’m missing. I don’t feel that ‘ah!’ anymore.” Although few and far between, not every designer is missing the runway. Early in the pandemic, Dries Van Noten called for long-term change to a fashion cycle he finds antiquated. “Move on, rethink things,” he said a year on, maintaining that stance. Does he never want to return to live runway shows? “If we find a way of transmitting the same things, yes. On the other hand, now we can reach more people,” he argued.
Along with Versace and Givenchy, Balmain produced the kind of big-budget video that’s now making fashion shows look more like Super Bowl commercials. To me, the grandiosity of it felt like a massive expression of the longing for the real runway that’s come to a boil. As Dan Caten of Dsquared2 told me early this season, “The crowd, the music, the show… being backstage! That’s what I’m missing. I don’t feel that ‘ah!’ anymore.” Although few and far between, not every designer is missing the runway. Early in the pandemic, Dries Van Noten called for long-term change to a fashion cycle he finds antiquated. “Move on, rethink things,” he said a year on, maintaining that stance. Does he never want to return to live runway shows? “If we find a way of transmitting the same things, yes. On the other hand, now we can reach more people,” he argued.
The movement captured in his film this season – featuring 46 dancers wearing the collection – was meant to showcase the garments in a different and more detailed way. Made for re-emergence, the collection conveyed a rediscovery of our physicality and movement, and, of course, adapted tastes. “Restrained excess,” the designer said of garments founded in the introvert-extrovert approach to dressing similarly proposed at Dior and Miu Miu. “Some fashion houses dream of going back to pretending that nothing happened, but our mentality changed. It would be sad if we picked up where we left off,” Van Noten said. “Our values have changed. We’re forced to be in different places, appreciating different things.”
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