All-excess
Pre-fall evokes an era of extravagance and round-the-clock cocktail hours.
Fashion has developed an appetite for elegant excess, but how to indulge? By pulling evening wear out of the shadows and letting it shimmy into daylight, for one. By paying painstaking attention to detail, for another. And by refusing – in this instance flipping Mademoiselle Chanel’s famous edict about elegance – to give in to the temptation to be ordinary.
A strong cohort of the clothing presented for pre-fall 2017 was far from, as this traditionally commercial season can be, sensible. Gucci continued with its potent bohemian mix with plush fabrics, super-sized embellishment and exuberant trimmings. Billowing pants recalled French beach pyjamas that stood in for leisure and lounging hour in the 1930s. Dance-hall sequins added gloss to the collections of Sally LaPointe, Alice Temperley and Erdem Moralioglu. At Stella McCartney, Emilio Pucci and Miu Miu, liquid bias-cuts rippled in the spirit of Paul Poiret, who gave newly mobile and newly visible women physical freedom to move in a post-war world. His theatrical inclinations are needed even more now, when fashion is escapism from sometimes dark moments. “All the sadness of
a romantic dénouement, all the bitterness of a fourth act,” he once wrote of a piece designed for the theatre, “were in this so-expressive cloak, and when they saw it appear, the audience foresaw the end of the play.” The power to express, his point rings out, still remains in clothes.
In practical terms, the choices to make now are to opt for long and lean shapes, fluid fabrics and hints of masculinity. Tailored pieces will ground any gossamer fabric or fantastical trophy piece. On-themoney accessories are all those that shine or swing.
In Weimar Republic Germany, energised by the dames of the cinema – Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Brigitte Helm – women spent on average a quarter of their income on clothing, and were criticised for doing so. Called irresponsible and frivolous, instead they were liberated. Dressing lavishly became a rebellious act. Invoke that now for wardrobe success. It’s decadence with a hint of the debauched. “She was dazzling – alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald of the beguiling Gloria Gilbert in The Beautiful and the Damned. Make them take a second, longer look.