Just like every other mag hag out there, I snapped up one of the Australian Harper’s Bazaar 15th Anniversary issues and gobbled it up page by page.
But of everything inside the covers, I could not go past Dana Thomas’ essay “The Moments.” Not necessarily in a good way, either.
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| The Moments by Dana Thomas / photo: |
An experienced, successful fashion journalist and author, Thomas charts the moments that have defined, shocked and driven the fashion world in the 15 years since Australian Bazaar’s inception. Equal parts tragedy (Lee McQueen, John Galliano, 9/11) and success (Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, the luxury-hungry Chinese economy.) And, a real pro, she traces it all so seamlessly and engagingly.
But I felt more than a little let down with Thomas’ (brief, biting) analysis of where fashion stands now. Her dismissal of this new decade’s sartorial trends as wholly unsexy and just a bit dull left me scratching my head. Frankly, there is more to it than screeching “not enough cleavage! Not enough thigh!”
And here’s why.
“Back in 1998, though, it was all about Tom Ford at Gucci. Who will ever forget those interlocked-G G-strings? The velvet hipsters? The sharply tailored Mafioso suits? The plunging white jersey gowns and to-the-floor minks?...[In 2004, Ford] launched his own successful and (sadly) more demure brand. (Hey, Tom: bring back the sex, please.)”
The essay sticks to quite a narrow view of what is ‘sexy.’ There is little denying that super deep necklines, thigh-high splits, and g-strings scream sex (if not always comfort.) But if the past 15 years have afforded us anything, it’s a broader idea of sexiness.
Today, that includes but is not limited to: exposing the more unusual erogenous zones of décolletage, shoulder blades and shoulders; entire garments cut in lace, evocative of night-time negligée; and man-style dressing, in trousers and boxy blazers that play with proportion, calling to mind that old adage about leaving things to the imagination.
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| Catherine McNeil giving some sexy shoulder for Prada Fall 2013 RTW / photo: style.com |
Sexy is not a term just reserved for 1998 Tom Ford for Gucci anymore. So it seems strange to keep falling back the old concept, particularly in an essay about fashion’s evolution of a decade and a half.
“The clothes are surely safer and more commercial – publicly traded companies don’t want to take the risk of a failing collection that would cause their stock value to fall – and as a result we’re dressing more conservatively; I’d even venture to say boringly. (Again, Tom: bring back the sex, please!)
So, all of our clothes bore you?
Jokes aside, I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that the collective dress sense since 2010 has been ‘boring’ (Side Note: if 2000s were the ‘noughties’, is 2010 onwards the ‘tens’? Ew.) What, exactly, is conservative about this:
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| Colour and bloom of Spring 2013 street style / photo: Tommy Ton for style.com |
Unless, of course, Thomas is tying conservatism back to that notion of baring skin. Boring = covered up; sexy = exposed? Not only is the perception of boring/conservativeness extremely subjective, such a simple argument doesn’t do justice to the power and function of fashion.
At this level (we’re talking major houses, fashion weeks, and Meisel shot fashion spreads) fashion is both a driving and reactive force to society. In the nineties and noughties that Thomas pines for, fashion drove the idea of exposed, skin-flashing sex. It was glamorous, fabulous and fun. Brands like Versace, Cavalli and Gucci pushed the idea through to all levels of fashion consumption, right to the high street.
Today, sex and skin are everywhere. From a set of 14 year-old butt cheeks hanging out of denim cutoffs, to the widespread cut-out trend, to Miranda Kerr resplendent in green velvet slashed to the navel from both directions.
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| Kerr sultry in Gucci / photo: Style Me Romy |
What came next was the reaction. Amongst all this flesh, a spark of something else arose. As it always does, fashion reacted to provide its own alternative. Covering up is the new subversion. Without getting too ‘girl-power’ about it: where stripping down was once the source of a woman’s sartorial command, now layering up is wielding a fresh kind of power.
Really, this has always been the case. It’s the same way that Coco Chanel’s boxy, boyish designs of the 20s freed women from corsets and allowed them the practical, utilitarian and easy fashions that wartime necessitated. The very same way that Christian Dior’s famed New Look – tiny nipped waists and full skirts with huge volumes of fabric – came in and dismantled the frugal war-style that Chanel had helmed.
It comes and goes; the trendsetters have a way of overwriting what came just before them. Fashion is always answering it’s own questions, only to pose new ones all over again. And this new covered-up mood is no exception.
“For me, however, the biggest change in fashion in the past 15 years is how it seems to have sunk into an existential funk. Back then, fashion shows were exciting and sexy and wholly unpredictable – boobs fell out, Naomi Campbell fell on her toosh. It was a real party atmosphere. Today they feel like a corporate tradeshow…”
Look, perhaps that mad, sexy (oh, how the essay is littered with that word) unpredictability of fashion may have fallen by the wayside. But, in my mind, they fell so that this domain could be taken more seriously now than ever before.
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| Campbell tumbles for Vivienne Westwood in '93 / photo: businessinsider.com |
It’s not just about ‘the show’ anymore – as a business, an industry, fashion reaches much further than that. It incorporates people and jobs that did not exist 15 years ago. Social media manager, anyone? Online content producer? Not just for the brands either, but for all of the media, PR, production and countless other agencies that tumble together in this world.
The business of fashion is growing and adapting all the time, always becoming a new beast. That is not to say that just because it is a business, fashion can no longer be fun and creative. But to sit and pout about being bored is a real disservice. Considering that Thomas is very firmly and comfortably entrenched in the lucrative business that is fashion, this new seriousness can hardly be a bad thing, can it?
On a final note, I wonder why the preoccupation with ‘sexy’? Ironic, yes, seeing as I have just dedicated 1000 words to dissecting sex in fashion. But why does it have to be sexy-or-nothing. There are other moods, other purposes.
You know, I don’t always feel like a 1998 sex cliché. So I’m glad there are skirts and jumpers and pantsuits and fascinators out there that communicate the other messy, complicated and decidedly un-sexy facets of my self.
