FRONT ROW
MODELS BACKSTAGE
AT GIVENCHY,
FALL 2019.The Power
of Fashion
IN AN ERA WHEN WOMEN ARE FIGHTING, once again, for our
hard-won access to choice, it might seem counterintuitive that the
suit—in its most masculine, tailored, gray flannel incarnation—is mak-
ing a comeback. But come back it did, on female dandies in bow ties at
Dolce & Gabbana, girls with cravats at Burberry, twenty-first-century
Katharine Hepburns at Givenchy, even the cool kids at Alexander Wang
(where a loose gray version, worn over a shiny black vest, served as a
hipster-ized version of the three-piece suit).
There’s a well-worn saying that “three is a trend.” But when it’s
more of an avalanche, like this season’s parade of suits, it’s clear that
some kind of reclamation of power is going on. In this case, that means
power in its most literal form—suits with ’40s tailoring or the strong
shoulders of an ’80s corporate raider. But worn with a touch of irony,
or accessorized with a slice of bare midriff, torso, or leg, a look like this
says, “Yes, I can try on these traditional markers of strength, but I won’t
change everything about myself in the process.”
In other words, you don’t have to start dressing like a corporate
drone. Both traditional and transgressive power looks abound thisBy Véronique Hyland
GIVENCHY: SONNY VANDEVELDE.
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