How the modest maxi became the It Dress of the summer
‘Kate Moss is wearing a maxi!” This communication circulated widely on The Daily Telegraph’s fashion desk early last week. And small wonder. Moss, patron sinner of the micro mini, champion of teeny denim shorts where the pockets dangle several inches below to emphasise just how tenuous the shorts’ relationship with modesty is… has come over all Handmaid’s Tale.
Hah. Never mind Mossie. Far bigger news in my house is that
have been wearing maxis all summer. If my eyes don’t deceive, we all have. Have we collectively turned woke?
I ask because in 2019, the maxi can be viewed as an emblem of taking back control from the male-gaze orientated fashions of the early 21st century, when clothes were so skimpy the only way to keep them on was to develop a new kind of body: with coat hanger shoulders, shelf like bony hips and unfeasibly perky orbs protruding from one’s chest.
Cue an obsession with ever more punishing gym fads, underwear that squished your kidneys, surgery and diets. It’s no coincidence, surely, that 2019’s maxis come at a time when, while the battle ground of the female body – too fat, too thin – although by no means at peace, is at least being offered an alternative vision, one where #strongnotskinny, #notperfect and #happyinmyskin are increasingly popular tags.
There’s another factor in the popularity of the maxi – the increasing visibility of religious women who cover up, but love fashion. Prior to Instagram, they existed in sequestered shadows. Now they’re out and proud, Websites such as themodist.com, a London-dubai based e-tailer founded by Ghizlan Guenez, neatly encapsulates the crossover in the double entendre of its name. Modesty is now modish. With designers ranging from Erdem, Rejina Pyo, Valentino, Burberry and Roksanda to Joseph and Ganni, this is where mainstream, high end fashion meets sleeves, sedate lengths and mosque/synagogue/ church-friendly necklines. Not that it’s exclusively catering to observant women. It’s become a fashion stop off for all luxury seekers, many of whom want the latest statements, but don’t choose to let it all hang out.
Not so long ago, it looked as though the train was heading in one direction – towards ever scantier dressing. Even men flashed their builders’ bums and espoused vest tops.
When Valentino’s designers, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli ushered in a new maidenly aesthetic a decade ago (one that looked back to the European age of chivalry rather than any overt religious Islamic influences) Chiuri recalls some vociferous criticism, although not from its Qatari owners.
“People didn’t think covering up was in the spirit of Valentino and they had a point. Up to then, glamour had always been associated with a degree of skin baring. We were doing something completely different,” she says.
Spool forward to 2019 and piling on the layers is the quintessence of glamour. Big brimmed hats? Ubiquitous for a 2019 holiday. When I found myself browsing clothes I didn’t need on Green this summer, I stumbled across an amazing brand of straw hats by an Athens-based label called Savapile. Some of the brims were the size of a small car’s wheels. Outrageously impractical, but as the shop owner was quick to point out, “fabulous on Instagram”.
Combine these with plunging hemlines, rising necklines and onepiece swimsuits and you have holiday tableaux that wouldn’t look wholly unfamiliar to the Edwardians. On Santorini, the Chinese topped off their maxis and hats with umbrellas,
because you can’t buy parasols yet in Santorini. They looked like something in a Whistler portrait. The average Zara customer probably isn’t thinking about socio-religious politics or the economy (you may recall that it was long thought that hemlines rose and fell with share index, but that’s been discredited in recent years). The UK may be a bit flat, but we’re not in recession yet – and the maxi has been around for years. No, the average maxi wearer is simply revelling in the practicalities. No need for fake tan, or to be excessively vigilant of errant leg hairs, plenty of room for pockets, which means no bag… far from leading us unto meekness, today’s maxis feel liberating. All that roominess, with a sense that this is clothing designed around the body and all its non-standard foibles, rather than something that demands the body bend to clothing’s demands, make the maxi seem the ultimate in liberating, modern, effortless dressing. Will I still be wearing them come winter, when they’ll need tights, and boots, and jumpers, and jackets, and probably, at some point, a coat? Somehow all that extra paraphernalia defeats the point. On the other hand I learnt long ago – after I told a Woman’s Hour audience in 2010 I’d never wear anything as drippy as a Milk Maid maxi – never say never.