The Fashion BusinessHowever, as the decade wore on, the understatement of minimalist style
became increasingly influenced by, on the one hand the revival of luxury
and detailing that came via couture’s newcomers, and on the other the desire
to possess less easily pirated objects, that relied on the supreme luxury of
expensive fabrics. Narcisco Rodriguez created midnight blue or oyster
cashmere separates that glimmered with the iridescent shine of constellations
of self-coloured sequins; and Gucci played with the minimalist aesthetic,
fusing it with a sense of decadence shown in an advertisement of 1996. The
two models pose languidly in a fashionably simple interior, the stark lines of
which are softened by the natural light shining onto the stone walls. They
are clad in Halston-style columns of white, betraying the 1970s nostalgia of
the Gucci look. The woman’s tubular dress is broken only by a neat circular
gap in the fabric at her hip, revealing the white strap of her underwear and
an oval gold buckle that sits against her tanned skin. The image conveys an
underlying sexuality that belies the simplicity of the style.
This sensuality became more explicit in Gucci’s 1998 collection that revelled
in the contrast between the simple lines of the minimalist and a love of excess.
The tailored structure of one catwalk model’s midnight blue coat and pencil
skirt were defused not just by the flesh revealed beneath her semi-transparent
top, and visible bikini pant strap, but also by the blinding glitter of the
rhinestones that lined the coat. As the model walked down the runway the
ensuing light show teased the seriousness of minimalist design, injecting a
glittering brashness into its normally sober contours.
This love of luxury has meant that late-1990s minimalism has been less
and less about the denial of tactile pleasures in dress. Even the starkly
utilitarian ethos of workwear was reinvented. The appeal of Ralph Lauren’s
white cashmere cargo pants of autumn/winter 1998/99 was based at least in
part upon their very impracticality, the delicious irony of this military basic
being transformed into a decadent status symbol.
Sportswear was given the same treatment, its status as the ultimate
functional form of dress once again hijacked by high fashion, and translated
into slouchy sensuality in Marc Jacobs’s cornflower blue hooded tops of 1998/
- Once again cashmere was used to add the distinguishing mark of luxury,
of expense. The ambiguity of such simple garments and their omnipresence
at all levels of the fashion industry was a motivating force in this shift towards
quality fabrics rather than the cheaper more durable materials of earlier
designers discussed, like Chanel and McCardell. As has been noted, minimalist
fashion is never as simple as it seems and it constantly shifts between the
seemingly opposing values of luxury and restraint, reflecting in its balance
between these elements of decadence and abstinence the fears and desires of
contemporary culture.