GQ USA - 11.2019

were the world’s premier manufacturers of

female fashion fantasies, they were mostly

led by men.

more men.

artistic director of Givenchy.

women’s clothes at Pringle of Scotland, a

once modest knitwear company that she

helped grow into a global luxury brand.

At Givenchy, Waight Keller was following

in the high-profile footsteps of some of fash-

ion’s more provocative personalities: John

Galliano, Alexander McQueen, and Tisci. You

know, bad-boy designers. When Tisci (now

Burberry’s chief creative o∞cer) joined the

house in 2005, he mingled fashion with hip-

hop at an unprecedented level. He filled his

runway with sweatshirts and tees and was

one of the initial high-fashion designers to

take sneakers seriously, turning out $900-

plus high-tops. Tisci was a true predecessor

for Abloh, with his big persona and his posse,

the “Givenchy gang,” whose ranks included

Kanye West, Joan Smalls, Kendall Jenner,

Madonna, and even Marina Abramovi ́c.

If Tisci succeeded in convincing people

that streetwear ought to be thought of as

luxury, Waight Keller has an even grander

goal in mind: She wants to elevate the art

of men’s clothing to its full potential,

Fashion with a capital F. Even as menswear

booms, it doesn’t yet quite cast the spell that

womenswear can over its customers, who

become willingly mired in a vision crafted

from an airy Parisian salon.

Of course the ambitious Florence show,

which was being staged at a sprawling estate

just outside town, would go a long way toward

helping her make her case. The plan she’d

worked up for the show at the sumptuous Villa

Palmieri would feature what Givenchy had

described as its “longest runway ever” (about

1,600 feet), down which Waight Keller would

send nearly 60 looks. As for those clothes,

Waight Keller told me something straight out

of the playbook from the golden age of cou-

ture: “The mission I’ve made for myself is that

you don’t desire it until you see it.”

THE NEXT DAY, as advertised, Waight Keller

had some final fittings, which I was permit-

ted to attend. In the living room of the Villa

Palmieri, I found her perched on a couch,

dressed in a black sleeveless dress with a

silk drop-waisted skirt. She again appeared

almost unbelievably at ease, greeting every

model by name.

Her young team looked cool, and their

collective mood was buoyant. They seemed

more like they were preparing for a fun

creative project than a giant global event,

industriously tweaking things with a pleas-

coming to a men’s show, if you’re won-

dering,” Waight Keller joked to me.)

Over the suit was an icy white floor-

length hooded raincoat that discreetly

snapped onto the suit jacket under the

lapel. As Choi walked up and down a

short strip of makeshift runway, the

coat caught the air in a fantastic, ele-

gant parachute, glossing the model’s

clipped pace with an aristocratic

ease, the way a country gentleman’s

coat glides while his horse gallops. It

had all the dramatic flow and move-

ment of a gown.

Studying the model, Waight Keller

asked, from about 10 feet away, if the

snaps connecting the raincoat to the

that sensuality, that drape that makes fabric

fly—and used it as the basis for her suiting

(like the magic trick she performed with that

white raincoat).

This sort of work requires deep expertise

in pairing textiles, matching light fabrics

with technical materials. What she does, she

explained, is bring her knowledge of “the

fluidity of the fabric and how it moves but

translate it to menswear.” In this way, the

go-to adjectives of French womenswear—

ethereal, romantic, floaty—are in the mens-

wear vocabulary now too.

Menswear is typically the story of minute

changes made at a glacial pace—think how

little the suit has changed in the past 100

years—whereas womenswear urges forward

with an unquenchable thirst for novelty. In

a womenswear collection, you might have

10 silhouettes, but

For Waight Keller,

perhaps the

most prominent

runway has been

the red carpet—

where a growing

number of actors

want to challenge

old notions of

how a leading man

should dress.

NOVEMBER 2019 GQ.COM 93

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES (2); DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS/TONY AWARDS/GETTY IMAGES (continued on page 125 )