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September 2019WE AR DO WE
FROM H E R E?
WE’VE BEEN HAVING BIG CONVERSATIONS, emotional conver-
sations, about fashion lately. We’ve been talking about creativity,
about inclusivity and community, about longevity and sustainabil-
ity, about respect and kindness—about what we believe in and why.
These values are being expressed and demonstrated in action by
established international houses and by upstart labels all around the
world—and in the conversations we are all having with friends about
our overflowing wardrobes.
Signs of a great systemic fashion realignment are percolating as we
think about how our spending links up with our shared values. It’s not
so much a backlash as a reconstruction, with new business models
being built around upcycling, reselling, and renting—things that no
one imagined a decade ago. As the era of Instagram
(which was, after all, only invented in 2010) coincides
with a renewed focus on what’s truly important, we’re
beginning to put a brake on the bad—something
corporations are just waking up to.
You can read it in the symbolism in the clothes on
the pages that follow, the last collections of the final
year of the 2010s: how so many designers who are
now at the top of the tree are producing exuberantly
creative work while upholding analog qualities and
handwork—and adding an older sense of value to their present work.
Oddly, the feeling isn’t so much chopped-up and anxious as calm and
integrated. There’s a desire to connect with the outdoors; a collective
chorus warning us, in unison, to slow down.
Gone is the pretense of being what one is not. At Valentino, Pierpaolo
Piccioli made glamour joyful by imbuing it with life and fun and the
personalities of his coworkers in Rome—and by celebrating a kind of
multicultural elegance on his runway. “I want to create a community
around Valentino,” he says. “And community means inclusivity.”
The beginning of a shift to corporate transparency and openness
is coming to pass, all part of a new, globally expansive era when the
amount of respect shown to a broad swath of communities—some
of which simply hadn’t been a part of the fashion conversation until
very recently—has become indivisible from a brand’s attractiveness.
Piccioli is but one of many designers leading us forward into the
next decade. Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga, Jonathan Anderson at
Loewe, Olivier Rousteing at Balmain, Anthony Vaccarello at Saint
Laurent, and the revolutionary female couture-house trio of Maria
Grazia Chiuri at Christian Dior, Clare Waight Keller at Givenchy, and
Virginie Viard at Chanel have also produced bold, paradigm-shifting
new work. So have those who choose to consciously distance them-
selves from fashion-establishment old-think. Pared-back, real clothes
are what Gvasalia—who removed himself from the hustle of Paris to
live in the calm of Zurich two years ago—came up with for his fall
Balenciaga show: modernized, Cristóbal Balenciaga coat silhouettes
and tailored pantsuits shown on women of all ages.
We’re also seeing a new culture of small, ethical entrepreneurs
around the world who are judging what success means for them
completely differently. “Feeling good” about the clothes we wear is
no longer strictly about appearance or comfort: It’s
about feeling good to represent something—to do
the right thing.
A difficult question still stands, though: Can fash-
ion change the culture? If you dress for the revolu-
tion, will it come? (The question is likely on the mind
of Tom Ford, the new chairman of the CFDA, as he
readies himself to steer American fashion into the
future.) Among all this positive change, there’s a place
of personal responsibility that we all occupy. In the
quest for considered, long-lasting, meaningful clothes, we’re still up
against disposable fast fashion—and a high-speed, carbon-emitting
industry. The fact remains that globally, nearly three-fifths of all
clothing ends up in a landfill or incinerated.
But there has been recent progress, and it’s being led by our chang-
ing attitudes toward beautifully designed and meticulously crafted
clothes—and beauty products we can use with a clear conscience.
Now, when we peruse the possibilities of a Burberry trench or a satin
tuxedo from Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello or a months-in-
the-making Hermès bag, we’re attuned not simply to their immediacy
but to their longevity—and to the notion that, perhaps, we might keep
them circulating in the system by selling them on to someone else.
Meanwhile, start-up after start-up is setting up shop aiming to reuse,
repurpose, and make beautiful things from non-damaging materials.
“I like to recycle, but with a magical kick,” the young Parisian designer
Marine Serre says. “It’s hard to do it, but I see it changing, little by
little. There’s a great time coming.” @