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As we prepare for an era of post-pandemic liberation, the popularity of versatile stretch-fit garments is on the up. Jonah Waterhouse investigates the trend.
As we prepare for an era of post-pandemic liberation, the popularity of versatile stretch-fit garments is on the up.
For some, it’s hard to imagine a place for stretch in 2021 beyond associations with activewear or questionable connections to elastic waistbands. But after more than a year of pandemic-spurred comfort dressing, fashion’s goalposts are shifting – in their place, a renewed affinity for the comfort we’ve become accustomed to, beyond the confines of home. Stretch fabrics, like the kind used by Sydney-based designer Amy Crookes, have become unexpected disruptors.
“I just don’t feel sexy when I’m wearing a pair of pants and I feel like I’m falling out at the top of them,” she explains frankly. “I feel so much more sexy when I dress comfortably anyway.”
Crookes creates with wearability in mind, and uses stretch materials as a vehicle for success – finding them to be forgiving of and flattering to natural fluctuations in size. It’s not to say stretch materials weren’t popular before the pandemic – they’ve just found a new and more eager audience.
“I love the idea that [my garments are] totally dependent on the person’s body,” Crookes says. “Nobody is exactly standard-size anyway … [the] clothing is stretching around your body and fitting your body, exactly how your body wants it to fit.”
Other smaller brands, such as Berlin-based label Ottolinger, are continuing to spearhead innovation. Head designers Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient, showed an autumn/winter ’21/’22 collection with garments that emphasised the body, celebrating the natural form.
“[In fashion school], we always worked on a mannequin that had a certain size, so it felt kind of limited,” the duo says. “Once we started to sell our clothes, which our friends and ourselves started to wear, the urge to work with different body types became essential.”
The result became clothes that fitted bodies larger, smaller and everywhere in-between. And as style icons like Lizzo and It-models Precious Lee and Paloma Elsesser reign supreme, it appears fashion is making steps towards clothes that don’t just ‘fit’ all bodies, but are truly inclusive by construction.
Irish designer Sinéad O’Dwyer, known for her silicone bodices, has found fabrics with stretch to be an effective way of extending her range, building on her purpose to design with size inclusivity at front-of-mind. Her autumn/winter ’21/’22 collection illustrates a world where stretchable fabrics that span sizes sit alongside more structured pieces (like her bodices) and made-tomeasure tailoring – all making up a wardrobe of the future, where every item adapts to the wearer’s body shape. It’s a remedy for what O’Dwyer describes as brands saying, “Sorry, we only offer four sizes [of this outfit],” or creating with the mantra: “This is the proportion you should be. Don’t fit it? Make yourself fit.”
“A large part of the design process is responding to the body you’re making for, but if that part is taken out of the process, it’s much less interesting,” she says. “We’re seeing more interesting design work lately because we finally have different bodies to look at,” she says, referring to the runway.
With elasticated clothes helping bridge the sizing gap – and ultimately, making wearers feel good – a new era for liberated dressing is upon us. And as we graduate from wearing stretchcentric garments around the house to taking them for a turn on the dance floor, room to move will be your new best friend – just think of it as the ultimate flex.