San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Welcome to the age of anti-fashion, where the ugly is desirable and comfort is key.
Fashion edicts can sometimes seem like impossible-to-decipher in-jokes decided by a few tastemakers. If designers and fashion editors set a course, the consumer is supposed to follow — no matter how baffling. Pop culture has mined this well of absurdity for years in films ranging from the musical “Funny Face” in the 1950s (“Think pink!”) to “Zoolander” (“It’s derelicte!”) in the aughts.
Now real-life fashion weeks across the globe are echoing these fictional fashion shows with intentionally bleak and, at times, preposterous clothes. Likewise, attire contrary to established aesthetic norms of “pretty” and “pleasing” are all over runways, from chunky footwear to shapeless apparel.
Welcome to the age of anti-fashion, where the ugly is desirable, comfort is key and irony has run amok. But is this current wave just an industry in-joke that has gone too far, or is it something deeper?
The question has been hanging in the air as a plethora of once-verboten wardrobe pieces like Ugg boots and hoodies have been elevated through designer collaborations and Millennials blasting the pieces across social media platforms, making the never-cool suddenly hip. Items once identified as alternatives to fashion rather than pieces of fashion have been given a new style context through the aesthetic looking glass.
Birkenstock’s Arizona sandals, once considered the province of aging hippies, are now seen on the feet of fashion influencers and in major designer collections. The oft-maligned chunky buckles and cork footbeds are celebrated in collaborations with department store Barneys New York and designer Rick Owens. Same for rubber shoe maker Crocs, which were not only painted, bedazzled and platformed at Christopher Kane and by Demna Gvasalia (more on him later) for Balenciaga, but are also debuting their own high-heel design soon while losing little of its gardening-clog aesthetic (or antiaesthetic). After an early aughts of slinky cocktail dresses and skinny pants, we now covet Laura Ingalls Wilder-meets-Mennonite silhouette dresses and pricey sweatpants you can wear for any occasion. Even the gender-anonymous mechanic- uniform jumpsuit, the ultimate in utility and standing out through conformity, has made a comeback. Then there’s the all-occasion sneaker, a concept embraced for men and women at both the highest and lowest ends of fashion.
What is it that has allowed designers’ — and consumers’ — eyes to adjust toward the “ugly” so strongly?
“There’s a pendulum that swings,” says Brian Trunzo, senior consultant and forecaster for trend forecasting service WGSN. “When one trend reaches the extreme, it then reaches in the other direction. Certain ‘ugly’ styles can become fashionable because of that.”
Trunzo say that society has ridden a “postmodern wave of thought re-evaluating what exactly is nice and aesthetically pleasing in fashion” that may come from the psychological fatigue of FOMO (fear of missing out) and social media’s constant push for newness and change. But while social media may have exhausted our taste for some kinds of conventionally glamorous or attractive fashions in an overstyled, red-carpet world, it also has a role in propelling so-called anti-fashion items to acceptance.
“Through social media, younger generations are very in tune with sarcasm, meme fashion, and some of these ugly fashions speak to that,” says Trunzo. With the reach of social platforms “it’s easier for something like a pair of Crocs at Balenciaga to go viral. There is a certain level of inception that happens when you see something so often you start to accept it as aesthetically pleasing.”
Anita Silvers, a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State who specializes in aesthetics, sees the operative question as “What is it about our cultural palate right now that is making some of these types of things the current model?” Silvers brings up Birkenstocks and prairie dresses as totems of nostalgic looks back to a simpler, perhaps more authentic time.
“Something like the Birkenstock was seen as an ‘honest’ shoe,” says Silvers. “Ask, what are we seen to be lacking in this era now in our leaders?” The answer: “Honesty, things we can trust” — which might explain why brands seen with a certain kind of heritage and consistency can be appealing, even if they haven’t been considered conventionally chic.
David Kahan, the CEO of Birkenstock U.S.A., based in Novato, ties the new wave of popularity for Birkenstock not only to a search for authenticity, but a reaction to celebrity culture.
“We’re living in a world where what was once a reality show is real life, real news is fake news — you don’t know what’s real or has falsehoods with some level of truth,” says Kahan. “I think people need to ground themselves with something they know is very real.” He compares the comfort (both physical and mental) many are finding in the “ugly” and familiar anti-fashion pieces to the various eras of “cocooning” (staying at home for entertainment) in American culture. “It’s all an attempt to ground yourself.”
Trends like “normcore” — the elevation of stereotypically bland or “normal” clothes like khaki pants and white button-down shirts — and its offshoot, “gorpcore” — the celebration of clothes that look like practical camping apparel — continue to inform the work of irony masters like Demna Gvasalia. His creative direction at Vetements and Balenciaga is among the roots of this trend. As one browses racks of slightly reimagined anoraks and sees the return of the double-pleated pant, it’s not a giant leap to see the Bay Area’s connection to this anti-fashion proliferation.
With a few tweaks, your average Gvasalia collection could easily be imagined as uniforms for the O.G. Silicon Valley disruptors. The king of basics in the Bay Area may not have been the late Donald Fisher, founder of Gap Inc., but rather Apple founder Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck, “dad” jeans and Birkenstocks.
But is ugly truly the new beautiful? While the athleisure revolution that brought stretch pants and sneakers into the all-occasion wardrobe seems to be a defining victory for comfortable fashion, the future of ugly is less certain. If it is a pendulum, as Trunzo says, it can swing back.
“As influencers tire of it, the trend will reach peak in mainstream culture,” he says, no doubt to be followed by the inevitable decline.
Or is it as simple as once the eye adjusts fully to the anti-fashion ugly aesthetic, it will become bored once again and move on to the next thing?