Elle USA - 09.2019

FRONT ROW DEEP DIVE

IN 1942, ROSIE THE RIVETER, heroine of the working American

woman, starred in a wartime campaign aimed at recruiting women to

work in factories and shipyards. We’ve all seen the now-iconic poster

where she poses in a boilersuit, with a fearless gaze and flexed bicep,

alongside the slogan: We Can Do It!

Today, Rosie’s heirs have made it off the factory floor and onto the

runway, where that same can-do spirit prevails. For fall, Dior’s Maria

Grazia Chiuri cooked up a quilted boilersuit that was as utilitarian as

it was refined; at Salvatore Ferragamo, Paul Andrew’s take on the look,

rendered in tobacco-hued leather, conjured simultaneous toughness

and elegance; and Isabel Marant’s khaki version, collarless and strong-

shouldered, emanated both power and ease—along with a sense that

there is power in ease. Today’s suits look like they know how to fix a

carburetor while swilling a champagne cocktail. They even found a ce-

lebrity ambassador recently in the form of Irina Shayk, making her first

paparazzi appearance post–Bradley Cooper breakup in a military style

from Burberry: the perfect look for parachuting her way into singlehood.

Fashion has long prized show over utility, tossing aside practicality

in favor of art and fancy. But the needle is moving: Thanks to street style

and Instagram, reality is now the runway. In an age held in thrall to ideals

of multitasking and efficiency, where celebrities are papped running er-

rands “just like us,” the boilersuit—optimization on a hanger—is arguably

the power suit du jour. It’s the ultimate triumph of fashion-as-life-hack.

Sure, there have lately been the welcome rumblings of a backlash

against the if-you-can-do-it-all-you-can-have-it-all algorithm, a recipe

(myth? con?) for general despair and a free-floating sense of failure.

Women are pushing back against the idea that we are not only supposed

to meet every challenge, we are supposed to do it with grace, without

the unsexy discomfort of effort. While that may be an impossible stan-

dard, the boilersuit is, at least, not going to get in the way of whatever’s

on your to-do list. It’s a versatile workhorse, presumably ready to jump

on a call, pick up a child from a playdate, head to yoga, and make grain-

free granola—or just lie on the couch. And if you can’t do it all, at least

your wardrobe can.

The all-in-one look is the new uniform for those

trying to do everything at once. Could the

boilersuit be the new power suit? By Olivia Stren

FASHION FOR

OVERACHIEVERS

IRINA SHAYK IN

BURBERRY

ROSIE

HUNTINGTON-

WHITELEY IN

RALPH LAUREN

ISABEL

MARANT

HELMUT

LANG

DIOR

SALVATORE

FERRAGAMO

KAIA

GERBER IN

ALEXANDER WANG

MARGOT ROBBIE

IN DIOR

HELMUT LANG, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO, AND ISABEL MARANT: SONNY VANDEVELDE; ROBBIE: RB/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES; GERBER: GOTHAM/GETTY IMAGES; DIOR (RUNWAY): STEPHANIE CARDINALE/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES; SHAYK: SPLASHNEWS.COM; HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY: GILBERT CARRASQUILLO/GETTY IMAGES.

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