Breasts alone are enough.
That’s all I could think when yet another Saint Laurent model showed up wearing what was essentially nylon stockings transformed into a dress. Or a cat ribbon blouse. Or a pencil skirt. Or a ruched halter neck—whatever it is, it’s body-hugging, sheer, and often draped across the body, always with plenty of nipples on display, but below the waist it’s 1980s The briefs were cut down to the hip bones like an aerobics leotard. Good luck, baby.
At the Saint Laurent show, of the 48 looks in needle-sharp stilettos, only 12 had no breasts front and center (and three of those 12 had no stockings underneath). It was a mini dress with a built-in garter belt for attaching it to ). That photo cannot be published in this family newspaper either.
Forget about the practicalities of making a pantyhose dress or the question of who would want to wear it in the first place. At this stage in the 21st century, such transparency seems like a common form of provocation disguised as misogynistic fashion. One that is especially misjudged given the current politics surrounding women’s bodies. They are already treated like objects, but do we really need to objectify them further?
Perhaps at some point, Yves Saint Laurent pushed the boundaries for the first time, 1966 sheer blouse, showing too much skin was shocking and subversive in public spaces and fashion runways. Perhaps at first it was an empowering escape from the prison of old customs and outdated gender rules.
Perhaps Saint Laurent’s creative director, Anthony Vaccarello, was remembering those days (the show space, two large round rooms, were draped with mint green velvet damask curtains. It looked like the salon of the Hôtel Particulier on Rue Marceau where Laurent was). Laurent once held court and the smell of opium was in the air). Perhaps he was making fun of etiquette, as the show notes suggest. Perhaps he had the ultimate goal in mind for the recent trend of naked clothing. Maybe it was a subversive way to make sure everyone actually understood the clothes. When the pantsuits finally came out (there were two in the show, and they were slouchy double-breasted numbers) or the giant marabou coats, it was such a relief and looked amazing.
Or perhaps Mr. Vaccarello was simply trying to revive people who are tired of fashion with too few ideas. If so, it’s a good impulse and a bad execution.
Violation requires even more nuance than a nearly bare chest (mine, I saw it). The result is a disconcertingly backwards start to what has been a volatile fashion season’s final week, with many of the models looking painfully thin and revealing just how exposed their breasts are. Became. Too many designers default to the mundane (look! Roden coat!). Especially when combined with the similarly backward-looking Dior show, where designer Maria Grazia Chiuri chose the 1967 Miss Dior collection as her starting point.
This is not the perfume that gave Miss Dior its name. Catherine Dior, Christian’s sister and a member of the French Resistance who spent time in a concentration camp, to whom Christian devoted his life. Rather, Miss Dior The Collection: the first attempt to introduce a ready-to-wear line in-house under Marc Bohan, who was his director of creative at the time. Chiuri said in a preview that this is a new silhouette for a new era and a new customer: one that is roomier and more functional than the original New Look silhouette. The other is not for decoration, but for active living.
(To further emphasize the action side of things, Ms. Chiuri commissioned an installation from Indian artist Shakuntala Kulkarni, who created an abstracted armor-like structure out of bamboo that depicts a woman in a mythical The exoskeleton in the center of the show space was attractive, but mostly just a mess.)
To make the connection even harder to miss, Ms. Chiuri sprinkled what appeared to be giant Miss Dior graffiti, but was actually a 1960s mod trench coat in black, white and beige, with an A-line skirt. It was a complete reproduction of the suit and the original logo. Jacket. This isn’t the classic Dior her bar jacket, nipped in at the waist and flared at the hips, Ms. Chiuri has been freed from that particular bondage, but cut in a swingier, looser silhouette. The hand-scrawled embroidery on the seams of the stockings was very cute, as was the delicate Miss Dior on the Mary Jane buckles of the square-toed low heels.
As much as women want to walk around flashing their breasts, they also want to feel like a walking brand advertisement. It’s easy to pay lip service to empowerment and liberation, and it’s tempting to use it as a marketing hook, but it’s hard to define what it actually is, at least today, because of the It is difficult compared to the point in time.
Perhaps, hopefully, the designers will come up with a solution. After all, that’s the job. But it’s definitely not this.
