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THIS SEASON’S DOORWAY-DEFYING SILHOUETTES WEREN’T JUST A RUNWAY STATEMENT.

THEY WERE A RECLAMATION OF FEMALE POWER.

here is a scene in Knock Down the House, the

award-winning documentary that tracks

four women running for Congress in 2018,

in which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is sit-

ting on the couch in her living room, breath-

ing deeply. In only a few hours, the then

28-year-old bartender from the Bronx—and

complete newcomer to politics—must go

on live TV and debate 10-term Democratic

congressman Joe Crowley in an attempt

to unseat him from his position. It will not be an easy or necessarily

pleasant task. She closes her eyes, extends her arms above her head,

and exhales. “I need to take up space, I need to take up space,” she

says, waving her arms around her. “I am here.”

In the debate, Ocasio-Cortez challenges Crowley on the issues

affecting their constituency with such confidence that you would

never know that she’d had any doubts or fears at all. As it turned out,

her mantra worked, both figuratively and literally. And it was a re-

latable one. Women from all walks of life, and in every industry and

profession, have been fighting for their right to take up space since

long before the 2018 primary races, and will continue to do so long

after. Whether in the institutions that barred us, the sports that said

we weren’t worthy, the voting booth, the workplace, or the White

House, every day and everywhere, women are asserting their right

to be in the room, at the table, and directing the conversation. The

fight extends to the quotidian as well: We resist manspreading on

our commutes, mansplaining in our offices, and taking on the lion’s

share of emotional labor in our homes. And when words are simply

not enough, what we wear can convey silent but impactful protest.

For example, and most simply: No. That was only one of several

messages emblazoned on the oversize tulle dresses presented at

Viktor & Rolf ’s spring couture show. The dress was as big as a tiny

house, one that would require walls to be knocked down and doors

to be taken off hinges upon the wearer’s arrival. An enormous,

funereal, almost Victorian black gown bore an out-of-place sunny

graphic saying, “I want a better world”: idealism emerging from

grim reality. A third, with shoulders stacked up threateningly to

the model’s ears, said: “Leave me alone.”

Larger-than-life, over-the-top, and literally space-occupying looks

that emphasized a woman’s right to be in the room were everywhere

on the fall 2019 runways. Just call it womanspreading. In Moncler’s

Genius capsule collection with Pierpaolo Piccioli, traditional puffer

silhouettes became inflated, a voluminous announcement of woman-

hood. While enormous skirts unfolded and expanded around models

like sinister bouncy castles, heads, necks, and torsos were enrobed

in bulging armor that telegraphed a readiness for battle. The looks

served as a sartorial defense mechanism, the fashion equivalent of

a banner declaring, “We’re here, and we will not be ignored.” The

effect made its way onto the red carpet as well: Lady Gaga wore a

cornflower-blue Valentino gown with balloon sleeves and a gener-

ous train to accept her Golden Globe for A Star Is Born. What better

visual proof that—as they say in show business—Gaga, as auteur and

near-EGOT, had arrived?

At Alexander McQueen’s and Marc Jacobs’s shows, the message

was just as loud, with feminine colors, flowery appliqués, outsize ruf-

fles, and delicate fabrics in hulking sizes and shapes that seemed to

embrace the message that femininity, in all its forms, is fearless. And at

Burberry, Riccardo Tisci crafted a puffer jacket whose prevailing mood

was something like Joan of Arc going to war clad in a sleeping bag.

This movement toward all things oversize has its roots in past

feminist waves. Suffragettes marching for the right to vote donned all

white as a savvy ploy to get media coverage for their cause. Katharine

Hepburn challenged the idea that a movie star must be “ladylike” by

wearing slacks in the 1930s, when women could still be arrested for

doing so. When women flooded the workforce in the 1980s, shoulder

pads became a symbol of assertiveness in the boardroom. It stands

to reason, then, that in this particular era, when women are fighting

back against the forces that hope to keep us down, in numbers that

we have hardly ever seen, we should want to communicate that we

will not be backing down, not saying we’re sorry, and not shrinking

to make anyone else more comfortable. You’d just better hope the

room is big enough to contain us. ▪

BY DAYNA EVANS. PHOTOGRAPHED BY ZOEY GROSSMAN. STYLED BY CHARLES VARENNE.

BIG

T H INK