Hag. It’s a word as unpleasant sounding as its meaning. Having originated 800 or so years ago as an alternate term for a witch or a woman thought to have dealings with the devil, today, it’s a three-letter synonym for an ugly old broad. So, what was it doing on Batsheva Hay’s runway?
Early on in the planning of her fall 2024 show, Hay decided to cast older women, and “wove that idea into the clothes,” creating pieces that looked droopy, or used “rumply” ruching, and inviting the Ukrainian knitter Yaroslava Savvina to collaborate on homemade sweaters. “The first word that popped into my mind was hag,” says Hay. “I also thought of old bag and crone, but hag was really the strongest for me.”
The casting and collection concept were born out of Hay’s own experience of aging. “As someone who entered fashion late, I was a ‘young designer’ in my late 30s, but now I feel like I’m kind of aging out of fashion. Like, I’m too old to enter the LVMH Prize, where you have to be under 40. I’m fucking ancient and I’m 42,” she explains. “So it kind of felt liberating to come out as a hag.” The word itself “is a bit grotesque. It’s a bit of an F-you word. I’m just a fashion hag. But it feels good: The desire to fit in happens in so many ways in fashion—trying to look young and dress young is just part of it—and I just felt sick of it.”
Hay was in good company this season. Inspired by his adopted mother, Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing cast women significantly older than 42, and famous ’90s faces like Guinevere Van Seenus, Frankie Rayder, and Maggie Rizer reappeared on the runways. At his Undercover show Jun Takahashi enlisted Wim Wenders to write and recite a poem about a single mother that left much of the audience teary-eyed. “It was shocking,” wrote my colleague Sarah Mower, “because it made every woman there feel how little our daily, interior lives are seen, heard, and respected by fashion.” How could they be when for so long it’s been teenagers or women in their early 20s doing most of the modeling?
It was Hay’s friend, the designer Victoria Bartlett, who wore the Hag sweater in the show. “I liked the irony in it, the sense of humor, the whole putting it back in everyone’s face,” she said. Bartlett wasn’t alone. “I thought some people would be offended, but if anyone was, they didn’t say that to me. Backstage, one of the models said, ‘yeah, I love it: Hot Ass Girl,’ like that’s what it meant.”
Since the show, the designer has lent the sweater to Marisa Tomei and Cynthia Erivo, the latter of whom is maybe planning a bit of theme dressing—she stars as Elphaba in Wicked: Part One, which comes out later this year. Then there are the pre-orders. Since everyone was so excited about the sweater, Hay put it up on her e-comm site and it became the most sought-after item from the collection. “I’m thinking about building that hag world out a little more. Do I need a hag bag, or should it be old bag?” She laughs. Then again, maybe she’ll just stick with the sweater. “I’m excited to wear it,” Hay says, “it’s punk.”
It is punk. There are few terms that aren’t curses that are as potent as the word hag. I tried to reclaim the word pussy as a college student. The p-word, I reckoned, should stand for strength and power considering it’s the source of life. But it’s been slow going. “Pussy is a naughty word,” Hay says. “There’s nothing naughty about hag, but it does have this power, and I think that’s kind of thrilling.”
The Hag sweater is available for preorder on Batsheva Hay’s website.
