From New York to Paris, the Fall/Winter ’19 runway shows ushered in a flurry of trends reflective of the current zeitgeist. Here, T sieves five of them and where you can shop them now.
From left: Valentino, Celine, Paco Rabanne and The Row.
Over the past couple of years, fashion has taken a significant turn toward almost aggressively non-provocative dressing. A puzzling phenomenon, for some, but the season’s armada of concealing collections are proof for the sceptics that the current vogue is, indeed, for the deliberately conservative way of dressing. Enshrouded figures are the norm: sleeves cover up the arms up to the wrist, necks are hardly visible, hemlines graze much further below the knees. The message is clear: women need not bare the skin to assert her statement.
From left: Balenciaga, Givenchy, Bottega Veneta and Alexander McQueen
In the ’80s, white-collar women intentionally dressed in men tailoring for the power they aspired to have, not the power they had. Progressively, the power suit has been distancing away from its synonymity to the adjective of “mannish”, opting, rather, for an amorphous elevation of the shoulders. This season, it’s apparently so as shoulder-defining comes rendered in a maelstrom of heights, structures and silhouettes. At Demna Gvasalia’s Balenciaga, punctuated roundness was impossible to ignore. Clare Waight Keller proposed a curvaceous uplift. The new Bottega Veneta, spearheaded by Celine graduate Daniel Lee, had a stiff hover around the neckline — because, why not?
From left: Proenza Schouler, Marine Serre, Bottega Veneta and Prada.
Designers have seemed to collectively fashion a creative riposte in response to these troubled times, be it in the form of futuristic combative retaliation or escapist narrative routes — anything but the totalitarian present. Proenza Schouler had a leather motorcycle vest cinched over blazers as a protective armour of sorts. Bottega Veneta posited all-leather warrior gear and at Prada, it was head-to-toe nylon. While Marine Serre sent a fearless troop from the future stomping down her runway in reflective hi-vis garbs and bodysuits, explaining to Vogue of her vision, “It’s after the apocalypse... a safe zone in which a new world is being created, a future world, and a new way to see fashion.”
From left: Off-White, Saint Laurent, Versace and Chanel.
An acidic wave of neon influx torched the Fall/Winter ’19 runways ablaze. From Saint Laurent’s glow-in-the-dark rendition to Versace’s silky multi-layering, the blinding brash hues of the ’90s are making a powerful comeback in parallel to the insurgence of emboldened women.
From left: Louis Vuitton, Marni, Rokh and Burberry.
Living in a digital age against the world’s chaotic societal clime, one can adopt different personalities, online and IRL — so much so that the fractured multiplicity of one’s identity is a notion that’s no longer foreign. Perhaps a jab to this, designers are splicing parts of garments, joining them together in surrealist jumbles: chopped-up flower prints, collaged motifs, off-kilter silhouettes.
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