While browsing photos of Louis Vuitton's Resort 2023 show, staged at the brutalist masterpiece that is La Jolla's Salk Institute, I couldn't help but wonder: did Carrie Bradshaw inspire this?
Hear me out! "Carrie Bradshaw" and "brutalism" are hardly bedfellows, but New York City's irritating, endearing sex columnist knows a thing or two about wearing belts in weird places — a quirky styling choice that Nicolas Ghesquière incorporated into his latest show.
It all begins with look four. Clad in a boxy crop top and flouncy skirt, a doe-eyed model boasts an extra-long belt around her bare waist. It's not a one-off occurrence: looks six, eight, 11, 13, 16, 17, 26, 27, 29, 42, 43, 45, and 51 all feature belt-on-naked-waist.
On season four, episode 16 of Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw famously wore an ultra-cropped button down and low-rise skirt, freeing her midriff to don a checkered belt. It was a bold choice that costume designer Patricia Field later regretted: "When I saw it later I thought it was just obnoxious. I should have slung the belt a little lower," she told Repeller in 2018.
Inadvertent or not, Ghesquière's revival of Bradshaw's belt moment speaks to fashion collective rediscovery of the midriff, a trend that spread like wildfire when Miu Miu introduced its viral mini skirt set.
Cinching the bare waist with a belt, an accessory typically worn over clothing, is inherently provocative. Louis Vuitton's latest show heralds the waist as the erogenous zone du jour, a phenomenon that lines up with with fashion's revival of Y2K style.
I'm calling it: next summer, we'll find ourselves bemoaning the sticky leather straps fastened around our exposed waists.