Why the suit is the shape of the moment
So much for comfort dressing. All those predictions about elastic waists and leggings and flats and the way the pandemic had changed dressing forever turn out to have been not so true after all. When both Alessandro Michele of Gucci and Donatella Versace (not to mention Dolce & Gabbana, and Ambush) open their shows with a suit — dark, tailored, slightly oversize — something clearly is going on. And it’s not the pivot to party mayhem that was once predicted.
But then, the world is not such a comforting place at the moment.
“For the last few weeks I have felt myself getting very serious,” said Walter Chiapponi of Tod’s, who also began his no-nonsense show of plush tailoring with a somber, single-breasted dark pantsuit under a dark overcoat. “I started cutting all the frivolous things.”
The suit, with its associations with power, status, gender conformity and nonconformity, armor and protection (not to mention adulthood), that makes you feel immediately girded for the day, may be the garment best — well, suited, for the times.
It began its runway reemergence in New York last week, and now appears to be reaching critical mass.
It was the single most dominant garment at Gucci, a brand returning to the Milan catwalk after two years away with a show held against a set lined in fun house mirrors, and lit by the flashing of strobes. Out of the dissonance came double-breasted suits in navy and sky-blue and chocolate brown; suits with tuxedo lapels and cowhide trim. Suits covered in bristling spikes. Suits with skinny ties and big bags and kooky accessorizing. A suit for every personality!
So many suits, or suit-adjacent styles (sometimes they involved shorts, or blazers), the whole thing seemed like a menswear show. Out of 84 looks, only 10 involved skirts, dresses, or, in one case, a lace teddy. Which was the point.
Seven years ago, before he was even officially named designer of the brand, Michele held his first show for Gucci, upending the brand image — and, to a certain extent, fashion — by filling it with conventionally feminine items like blouses, pastels, bows, and sheer, and kick-starting a conversation about gender that is still going on.
But though the tendency is to focus on what that means in the context of men in what was formerly regarded as women’s clothing, in fact it is rooted in the suit and the way women appropriated it decades ago in their climb to independence and power (a conversation that is also, by the way, still going on). With this show, Michele was simply reminding everyone of the fact.
Pointedly, the only thing as omnipresent as the suit in the show — besides the excited squawking over the front row presence of ASAP Rocky and a very pregnant Rihanna, belly out and headdress on — was a collaboration with Adidas. The German sportswear brand has become fashion’s favorite nonfashion partner (a short list of their collaborators includes Prada, Rick Owens, Stella McCartney, Missoni, and the one that started it all, Yohji Yamamoto), and Michele said in a post-show news conference he had been obsessed with Adidas since he was a kid.
But rather than sportify Gucci classics, Michele turned the tables and formaled-up the sports stuff, adding the Adidas signature three white stripes to the sides of his suits or the top of a corset, using the trefoil emblem as a crest on the breast pocket of blazers, incorporating it into a print, plunking a blown-up version on bags.
It was as clear and canny a message as any about just which kind of dressing was really the dominant kind.
Suits you, sir
It’s probably not a coincidence that Ennio Capasa, former found and designer of Costume National who made his name on the slick black suit before leaving that brand eight years ago, chose this season to make his return with a new line, Capasa. Or that it featured (natch) an update of his trademark tailoring, but with some of the stiffness taken out.
There’s a reason, after all, the suit lasted so long in the first place. (This is not really a rediscovery of an old style by a generation in love with vintage; tech bros aside, in most corridors of power the suit never entirely went away.)
A reason it is a classic, as Luke and Lucie Meier implied at Jil Sander, sprinkling assorted Greek and roman statuary around their show space the better to frame their sculpted felted wool miniskirt suits and sleeveless coat-dresses, falling to mid-calf and caught by a flat bow at the neck. There’s a Zen balance in their work between minimalism of line and material tactility (also really desirable accessories) that speaks softly and carries a big punch.
When it comes to power dynamics, however, few designers are as tuned in as Versace. She did, after all, have Julia Fox, who knows something about domination, on her front row, and wide legged pinstripe pants and pencil skirts, pastel satin capo overcoats and 1990s power miniskirt suits in exaggerated houndstooth tweed on her runway. All of them paired with corsets that spoke of both sex and body shields, and oily PVC tights.
Teamed with towering double platforms, they made the models look like masters of an alternate universe. One worth exploring.
Unsuitable
Or, for that matter, the highconcept claptrap offered up at Marni, where Francesco Risso went on a quest to top his immersive be-in of last season with entirely apposite results.
Held in a dark and chilly warehouse planted with weeds and dusted in dirt, with a sort of concrete hillock/ramp in the center and without any seats, the show involved models meandering about through the standing crowd (including Risso, who began putting himself in his shows last season, an initially charming surprise that is starting to seem more like a vanity project). Each was trailed by their own guide in a stocking cap and tattered jacket holding a flashlight to backlight their way, until they ultimately climbed the ramp and descended back into the crowd, jostling desperately and often fruitlessly to see.
It’s too bad, because Risso is a talented designer who genuinely manages to imbue his work with emotion. There seemed to be a lot of make do and mend. Some tailoring; some silky, embroidered dresses. A lot of hand made-looking wacky headgear.
Afterward the audience spilled out into the sunshine and the backyard, where it turned out the models had repaired to replenish their energy via a feast of food and drink laid out on two long tables on a little island of cobalt sand; the show after the show, where Risso was holding court with great energy and enthusiasm.
He was talking about “courage” and “community,” and the fact each model had brought a personal talisman that was incorporated in their look, seemingly oblivious to the fact that who in the world knew what that was? Or that rather than bringing everyone together, the staging had simply served to push them apart.
As a look, it doesn’t really suit anyone.