POWER DRESSING
Empowerment is the captivating directive to put first this season, writes Alice Cavanagh.
Empowerment is the captivating directive to put first this season.
What a time to be a woman. As we ride the crest of third-wave feminism, propelled forward by the resounding shouts of ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘MeToo’, there is a new sense of solidarity among females. We’re ‘woke’, as they say, to a pervading sense of awareness and it infiltrates our everyday thoughts, words, actions and the way we dress. This is ultimately about women dressing for themselves. Be it subtle – the start of a new chapter for the monarchy as the new royal Meghan Markle bares her shoulders on her wedding day – or out there, as when Cate Blanchett so unapologetically put it as she accepted a style award during the post-Weinstein news cycle. “For me, the true icons of style are always those women who’ve been utterly themselves without apology,” she said, adding: “I mean, you know we all like looking sexy, but it doesn’t mean we want to fuck you …”
Dressing for this new era was the prevailing mood of the autumn/winter ’18/’19 collections, which suggested that this season, women, more empowered than ever, will answer the battle cry by donning armour before they head out into this brave new world. Some of the season’s strongest propositions – Calvin Klein, Prada, Balenciaga and Maison Margiela – made a case for this idea by bundling models up in layers upon layers and larger-than-life outerwear. At Balenciaga, I lost count of the number of parkas styled in any one look, while at Calvin Klein, Raf Simons sent out the girls in high-vis firefighter suits and jackets, PVC wading boots and silver foil protection gloves. The look was mashed up with austere, yet sheer, Little-House-on-the-Prairie dresses, his staple cowboy shirts and a line-up of oversized coats in checks and tweeds, along with knitted balaclavas. It was a strange mix, but it worked, and this haphazard approach to styling reverberated throughout the season.
Take John Galliano at Maison Margiela, another designer who saw fit to pile it all on, although his girl was in such a hurry to leave the house that she dressed in reverse: trench coats were layered under dresses, a jumper thrown on over a blazer. There were also PVC hoods, puffer jackets and tailored overcoats in Yves Klein Blue and yellow – a look that was topped off with the chunky kicks he calls Security Margiela sneakers. It was a far cry from the romanticism Galliano was long known for, but this reflects the whole new life he has created for himself at Margiela.
To be clear, the trend is not about covering up so we can tiptoe around unnoticed, nor is it a reflection of a pessimistic mood. Instead, it was the idea of freedom that inspired Miuccia Prada and Simons et al – and the new, layered look is not for a wallflower. It is loud and colourful – shiny and happy, even. At Balenciaga, Prada – where a Day-Glo palette was cleverly spliced with a patchwork of techno tweeds, plaids and trippy prints – Balmain and Sonia Rykiel, the models looked ready to rave in a mishmash of acid hues. At Margiela, the collection was awash with iridescent, reflective, flash-sensitive and hologram fabrics – worn with lips to match. The same goes for Paco Rabanne, where chainmail slip dresses shimmied down the runway, and Givenchy, where evening dresses dripped with silver paillettes. If this season’s woman is protected against anything, it is from a need to overthink the way we dress, and whom we dress for. “My dream,” Prada told the press backstage, “is for women to be able to go out in the street and not be afraid. I wanted to have the freedom exaggerated.”
Despite the abundance of padded outerwear, femininity is still resolutely in the picture. At Prada, the silhouette was ladylike: shift dresses, swathed in tulle, worn with fluorescent evening gloves that stretched past the elbow. At Fendi, too, the girls were readying for battle in subtler ways. Here, it was a suggestion in the shoulder, which was neat and boxy on tailored dresses, and flattering coats that were imbued with a perfect mix of the masculine-feminine: suiting fabrics on the body, topped off with what looked like collars fashioned from antique lace. “A romantic uniform for a strong and powerful woman of today,” said Silvia Venturi Fendi. At Givenchy, a well-defined shoulder also gave eveningwear more backbone than usual.
At Christian Dior, a touch of the homespun and artisanal appeared in the form of patchwork skirts, jackets and dresses (also, with lace collars). The craftiness of this collection – a boho mix of crochet and flower-power embroidery – called to mind the French student riots of 1968, when, like today, an incensed population took to the streets. Maria Grazia Chiuri has used her collections as a mouthpiece for feminism in the past, but this season, by avoiding the desire to spell it out, the message was much more inspiring.
Elsewhere, that mood of free-spiritedness rolled on, at Chloé, Isabel Marant, Jacquemus and Hermès, where a nomadic mood took over via folkloric details and earthy, desert hues. Jacquemus took us to the Moroccan souk, while Chloé’s eternally romantic wanderer continues to evolve with the talent of Natacha Ramsay-Levi. For her second collection, Ramsay-Levi – a soul sister if ever there was one – presented dresses and handkerchief skirts in lengths that whirled around the knees with necklines that plunged down to the navel. It was a silhouette purpose-built for confidence – subtly sexy and beautifully embellished with embroidery, sequins, lace panelling and even fringing.
On a fringing note, I’m willing to bet you’ll seek out a garment or accessory with fringing this season, as it was seen everywhere from Valentino and Alexander McQueen – to punctuate sleeves and hemlines – to Dries Van Noten, where it gave form and movement to simple draped skirts and evening dresses. The reference to movement here is everything, because that’s what fringing does so nicely: it quivers, shimmies and sways along with the wearer. It’s not an adornment for those who sit still, or sit back – it embraces a woman on the move. Onwards and upwards.