And last but not least, we wander through PFW for the SS17 collections.
” Finir en beaute ” as the French would say.
Our last stop to find out if neutral gender awareness was available in the city of light.
To be honest, it was less evident.
We had mainly female collections on show and hardly any unisex presentations.
The big new change here was that we had more women taken over the creative roles in previously male-dominated fashion houses.
The power impact came across in the Louis Vuitton and Chanel collections, represented by 1980s strong, outspoken shoulders for Nicolas Ghesquiere and futuristic tweeds worn by space odyssey robot-lookalike models for Karl Lagerfeld.
But there was also a strong sense of masculinity or should we name it ” Demna-ism ” nowadays ?
Demna Gvasalia respected the heritage of Cristobal Balenciaga.
” I analyse and I question “, he said.
We got the girls wearing never ending spandex boots from toes to hips. ( or were they trousers ?)
The masculin touches are seen in his open ankle split trousers echoing a ” je ne sais quoi “ambiance.
He’s such a refreshingly new kid on the fashion block.
John Galiano gave us surf boys & surf girls fitness with wet suits, life vests tailoring and yoga mat backpacks. A strong sense of athleticism was presented. I especially liked the metal lips and the towel-around-the-neck dress.
It was Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood who gave his male models long coat dresses, skirts and latex heart pocket shorts, black for the boys and red ones for the girls. Everyone had red kisses lipstick and wore green covered hats.
It took me back to NYFW and LFW where we saw more of this.
And what about the Asian designers ?
Haider Ackerman loves his woman as a ” silent soldier “, in skinny trousers with a glitter, metallic jacket. It’s a perfect masculin/feminin glam rock combi. Both sexes can wear it off. The same applied to Junya Watanabe with a modern, new punk look good collection for men and women.
Yohi Yamamoto presented an arty, creative unisex collection.
That’s how we’ve been recognising these designers for a long time.
Maybe this is their way of expressing neutral gender ? And we haven’t really noticed it because we took their style for granted ?
Let’s say that in the last week of fashion month, we saw on the one hand the dreamy, fluid, girlie, feminine, light, soft, embroided, floral maxi tea dresses. Think : Alexander Mc Queen, Dior, Valentino, Rochas, Lanvin, Chloe, Hermes, Celine and Miu Miu.
And on the other hand we had the very present, in your face, asymmetrical, 70s glitter, latex, tight, SM leather, 80s oversized shoulder tank dresses. Think : Balmain, Ungaro, Saint Laurent, Kenzo, Givenchy.
When I put all of those gender blender observations over the last 4 fashion weeks together, I asked myself :
does this way of dressing just bring us closer to each other, are we just the same ( equal) as human beings ?
Can we therefore call it the creation of gender bliss ?
This is proper food for thoughts.
I think we should definitely take note.
As Anna Wintour said at the end of PFW :
” The designers are aware of the fact that fashion has to feel more real “.
And if people, in general, could be more real by wearing what feels true to them, that would mean fashion is a helping hand in expressing who you really are.
Therefore, the arrival and the awareness of neutral gender can only be applauded to feel and to be true to yourself.
To be continued.
TeDe
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