Every couture season is, in part, a meditation on the métier—one that’s defined as much by time as craft. Think about it: Hours are the measure used for the work that goes into the making of garments that reflect the times and women’s place in them. This couture season tells us her role is in flux. How else are we to read the coexistence of weaponized cone-bra breasts at Jean Paul Gaultier and rose busts at Armani Privé? Or Lisa Fonssagrives cosplay with couture quote-unquote jeans?
Like the sword of Saint Catherine carried by Joan of Arc—the martyr and patron saint of France who was referenced at Balenciaga—the fall 2023 couture season was two-sided, a collision of beauty and body anxiety.
Throughout history the (naked) female form has been seen as a wonderment and a terrifying threat. For some, it is the materialization of original sin, associated with the fall from innocence. Out-of-date thinking, you say? One would think so, but morality, alongside science and law, is part of the American debate about abortion rights and women’s bodily autonomy. This discussion is happening at the same time as the gender binary has come into question, raising discussions about femininity. Is it an innate quality or one that can be taken up? A person’s appearance might not reflect how they identify.
What is real is another big question of our age, and in fashion it has led to a lot of visual play. I’m not sure how to parse the emergence in one season of trompe l’oeil jeans and pseudo-nudes (seen at Schiaparelli, Thom Browne, and Gaultier), especially because it was the latter that made the headlines. Are all fakes weighed equally?
Obfuscation of the female form is one form of body anxiety that was expressed in different ways. In several instances it was subsumed in service to art in the form of tour de force savoir faire that nonetheless overpowered the models, who seemed to become the wall on which the masterpiece was hung. In contrast, Demna’s abstraction of Lucian Freud’s work into a series of coup de vent (gust of wind) pieces felt dynamic and vital, movement being associated with freedom and AFK #goals.
Of note were the number of supersized looks that delivered big-D drama but would make the wearer difficult to embrace. This distance dressing might be understood as an expression of pandemic-era body anxiety. The virus stirred a fear of intimacy (sexual and otherwise) and proximity. Space-commanding looks created a sort of no-fly zone around the wearer. Shades of #MeToo as well? Viktor Rolf summed up the can’t-touch-this vibe in a maillot with a cartoon-like 3D exclamation that read “No” and a bikini that spelled “Dream On.”
Whether the faceless humanoids that appeared at V&R were reveries or nightmares is up to the viewer. Some of the models in the Dutch duo’s 30th-anniversary presentation were saddled or maybe assaulted—it’s open to interpretation—by headless figures in black-tie. Did they represent the patriarchy?
Unknowns can be scary, and at couture, as at menswear, some designers responded with armor-like clothes. The linkage of the 2020s with the Dark Ages feels cautionary. Not so designers’ interest in antiquity, which jibes with a feeling of restraint that is in sync with world events. As Alexandre Vauthier put it, “I’m not a reductionist, but the state of the world, the noise, and the harshness surrounding us is pushing me towards a quest for balance, for grounding my work in its essential foundations.”
He wasn’t alone. It’s interesting that two designers with connections to Rome—Maria Grazia Chiuri at Christian Dior, who was born in the Eternal City, and Kim Jones, creative director for Fendi—found inspiration in Greco-Roman sources with their connotations of permanence, clarity, and continuance. Classical lines, which move with the body, added a much-needed human and caressing touch to the fall season. This return to essential, vital shapes is not achieved with ease. There’s nowhere to hide. As Pierpaolo Piccioli noted, “Simplicity is complexity resolved. [Couture] is all about concealing the effort that achieving simplicity requires.”
Complementing this tendency to pare back was an appetite for a feet-on-the-ground kind of normalcy, which was seen at Chanel, where one model walked Virginie Viard’s sister’s dog down an open-air runway, and at Valentino, where jeans (in elaborately beaded gazar) opened the show. These looks captured the naturalness that is so appealing in (old-school) street style pics. Clothes made for living and moving in. And couture can be that as much as it can be about glamour.
The whole point of the métier, in fact, is to craft beautiful garments that suit individual bodies, with all their particularities. Designers’ varied takes on the female form reveal some of the range of expressions of femininity, be they strident or sensual. The body anxiety that surfaced at the collections might be motivated in part by the fear that machines will someday replace humans. Our physical bodies are one of the things that distinguish us from bots. Couture is the most human of métiers.
And God Created Woman
The Classical Ideal
Ascetic Expression
Distance Learning
A New Age of Chivalry
A New Normal
Beyond the Blue
A Day at the Museum
Hot Links
