Call me a cynic but I don't know if I actually love "fashion." The fantasy, sure, that's fun and all but that's sometimes all it is. Clothing, though? Clothing is everything.
So, how refreshing it was to see a plethora of actual clothes at Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2024 in Milan and Paris. Hell, even with several weeks of wonder 'n excess ahead of us, I'll say it now: wearability won Fashion Week.
There are obviously "real" clothes shown every season.
In fact, most of the brands that I'm about to mention have been showing this and similar stuff for seasons on end (and that's a good thing) but they're frequently overshadowed by spectacle. Not their fault, either; how can a subtly excellent jacket or well-tailored pair of pants compare to the headlines drummed up by A-list red carpets and collapsing sets?
The people want excitement and wearable clothes aren't exciting (by design!).
And, yet, they are to me. And perhaps because we're swimming in the wake of our collective quiet luxury hangover or perhaps due to economic uncertainty, they now are to even jaded fashion insiders.
Highsnobiety's ears on the ground at Fashion Week have heard much mention of the brands doing pleasantly ordinary clothes — this season, there's a lot of buzz about the sorta stuff that doesn't often drive buzz.
What's big in fashion now? Stuff that that anyone could imagine themselves wearing.
Prada is never not relevant but Prada Fall/Winter 2024 felt particularly timely. Its sophisticated semi-officewear was grounded but elevated, real but aspirational, epitomizing the thing that makes the Milanese house so incredibly vital right now: approachability.
That is to say, even someone utterly disinterested in fashion could tap into Prada's wavelength this season as it beamed out modestly relaxed tailoring and typically snug sweaters. Colorful knitted skullcaps were the sole oddity, the clothes were otherwise classic but better.
Classic but better is, really, itself a good summation of the vibe at Fashion Week FW24. If Spring/Summer 2024 was all about owning one's own sexuality — underwear on the outside! — FW24 is a paean to practicality.
As exciting as it is to behold the extraordinary imaginations of the industry's foremost talents, it's even more exciting to actually wear cool clothes, items that're ordinary in appearance but extraordinary in make.
Look at Pharrell's Louis Vuitton show. It was a lush, heady exploration of indulgent westernwear lead by excessively exquisite fringed jackets, suede western shirts dappled with pearlescent beading, jeans with built-in denim chaps, and huge LV belt buckles.
But the best bits, by my estimation, were also the simplest. Washed-out painter's jeans, gold-riveted chore coats — Louis Vuitton by way of Dave's New York.
The beauty of those clothes was that they weren't ordinary clothes, even if that's what they initially resemble. They're granted greater purpose by way of their luxurious fabrication and, in a Duchampian way, their place on the runway.
This ain't your grandpappy's Carhartt. It's fancy Carhartt. Now, is it better Carhartt? Your call. But the fact remains that Louis Vuitton's workwear is just as wearable.
And it ain't only the luxury labels that've got the people talking.
It's Wales Bonner's sequined Timberland boots, Magliano's satisfyingly slouchy suits (handstitched by Kiton), AURALEE's painfully sumptuous normcore — kid mohair sweater tied around neck of Egyptian cotton shirts tucked into virgin wool slacks — and the sexed-up mountainwear at RIER.
It's JW Anderson's torso-swallowing jackets and cargo pants, deliciously and deliberately blown out of proportion but not so much that you (yes, you!) couldn't wear them yourself.
It's Lemaire's heartrendingly crisp trench coats, aviator jackets, and pleated slacks, the building blocks of a modular wardrobe rendered with the grace of a couture collection.
Lacking a creative director, Givenchy's design team delivered a menswear collection that epitomized back to basics with no-nonsense wool coats and a reinterpretation of the uniform that the house's founder once wore while working in his atelier. Workwear, the Hubert de Givenchy way.
I don't know if the hemline index, which suggested that skirt lengths mirror the economy (high = strong, low = weak), is as relevant in today's anti-monoculture as it once was. But, surely, the newfound enthusiasm for reliable silhouettes is the next-best form of fashion tea leaves.
The times, you know, they are a-crazy. What they call for are high-elegance clothes that're the antithesis of high-effort.
