FLUID FASHION.
FLUID FASHION O N
T H E
R U N WAY
A N D
T H E
S T R E E T S
On the cover: Rick Owens Autumn/ Winter 2011 First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Three Dots Publishing, Three Dots Print Press, Lower Bristol Road, Bath, BA2 3BL Fluid Fashion Š 2018 Three Dots Publishing, London Text Š 2018 Edward Enninful Copyright details for illustrations appear in the Picture Credits, p.257 Design concept by Katheirne Evans Design and Layout by Katherine Evans All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78280-808-4 Printed and bound in China by Artron Art (Group) Co. Ltd To find out about all our publications, please visit www.threedotspress.com. There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue, and buy any titles that are in print.
EDWARD ENNINFUL
FLUID FASHION ON
T HE
R U N WAY
A N D
...
T H E
THREE DOTS PUBLISHING
ST R E ET S
Chanel Spring/Summer 1984............p.27 Vivienne Westwood Autumn/Winter 1997...........p.33 Jean Paul Gaultier Autumn/Winter 2001...........p.39 CONTENTS Rick Owens INTODUCTION .....................p.1 Spring/Summer 2011............p.45 John Galliano Autumn/Winter 2011...........p.51 FASHION FLUID HISTORY...................................p.7 Jeremy Scott Fall/Winter 2012...................p.57 RUNWAY................................p.19 Craig Green Autumn/Winter 2014...........p.63 Hood by Air Jean Paul Gaultier Autumn/Winter 1984...........p.21 Spring/Summer 2015............p.69
Rad Hourani Spring/Summer 2015............p.75 Chanel Spring/Summer 2015............p.81 Gucci Autumn/Winter 2015...........p.87 Acne Studios Autumn/Winter 2015...........p.93 Prada Autumn/Winter 2015...........p.99 Givenchy Autumn/Winter 2015.........p.105
CONTENTS
Denim for Everyone...........p.199 Timeless Black....................p.209 The Modern Mix................p.219 Keep it Minimal .................p.229 To Boldly Go........................p.239
Moschino Spring/Summer 2016..........p.111 Charles Jeffery Spring/Summer 2016..........p.117 Vivienne Westwood Autumn/Winter 2016.........p.123 Balenciaga Autumn/Winter 2017..........p.129
Fendi Autumn/Winter 2017..........p.135
NOTES..............................p.249
STREET INFLUENCE.........p.141
PICTURE CREDITS.......p.257
STREET FASHION..........p.147
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS ............ .........................................p.261
Dress Like a Boss...............p.149 Young in the City................p.159 Activewear...........................p.169 Eveningwear........................p.179 A Cut Above.......................p.189
INDEX................................p.263
RUN WA Y THE
P I VOTA L
MOMENTS
Society is in a time of renewed ferment about gender. Culture wars rage over bathrooms and even the very notion that men or women have to choose one fixed gender identity. The divide looms between those who welcome the new fluidity and those who yearn for clearly defined gender roles. So designers use the runway as a tool in a continuing dialogue about how clothing defines masculinity and femininity — and how it scrambles these notions, too. Fashion has crossed many of these lines for years, of course. Women have long appropriated men’s clothes for comfort and authority. In the 1960s, longhaired men in paisley, florals and bell-bottoms defied conventions of what men were supposed to look like and what clothes they were supposed to wear. Jean Paul Gaultier put a man in a skirt back in 1984. And in 2016, Jaden Smith wore clothes designed for women in a Louis Vuitton advertisement. But showing the women’s and men’s lines together allowed for rapid-fire consideration of what the differences were, really. Material? Designers used the same fabrics for many of the men’s and women’s collections. Cut? In some cases, the tailoring seemed uncannily similar. Accessories? Many designers included accessories that once would have been thought exclusively feminine or masculine on both male and female models. Fashion, like society, is clearly not opting for hard and fast rules. Yet each designer brings a particular sensibility to the gender continuum. 19
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HOOD B Y
A I R
Spring / Summer 2015 Ready-To-Wear-Collection Shayne Oliver, the key designer of this collection presents an interrogation of what it means to be a man. Hence the deconstructed blazers and fatigues, the riff on the three-piece suit, the very on-trend and very appealing reinterpretations of traditional shirting, for both girls and boys. And for people who refuse to identify with any one particular gender. This was a Hood by Air show, after all. The chokers were arresting, but the most interesting thing on the Hood by Air catwalk was the emphasis on relatable, wearable clothes. Hood by Air was a finalist for the LVMH prize, and Oliver noted that the experience shaped his thinking about what it means to be a brand; he was galvanized to approach his collections somewhat less as a challenge to push himself as a creator and a great deal more as a chance to entice people into his world. Merely thinking that way would represent a leap forward, but Oliver had the goods right on the runway. 33
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Hood by Air, Spring/Summer 2015 Ready-to-Wear-Collection
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JEREMY S C O T T F A L L / W I N T E R 2012, NEW YORK
Jeremy Scott’s collection presents the persistence of the past in the perma-present culture of the Internet, when anything and everything is just a Google search away. “Things don’t ever go away now,” he said backstage. “Deleting history isn’t really possible.” The rainbow spectacle he staged looked back to the nineties, and at moments it seemed to glance at the way the nineties looked to the seventies, and, well, if you took out your magnifying glass, you’d, like, find a little bit of whatever you happened to look for. That’s the conceptual bit. More literally, there were sweat suits, stretch dresses, and leggings printed with computer screen shots and instant-message emoticons. It wasn’t Scott’s most wearable offering, but it did confirm him once again as a provocateur—and maybe a more thoughtful one than he sometimes gets credit for. He, in turn, paid homage, with a series of knits, to one who came before. The nineties’ original bad boy: Bart Simpson.
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Jeremy Scott, Menswear Fall/Winter 2012. New York.
STREET FASHION
Gone are the days when skirts were just for women and trousers were just for men. Gender no tates the way
longer people
dicdress.
Fashion designers are combining men’s and women’s collections on the runway, John Lewis have abolished “girls” and “boys” labels on children’s clothes, H&M have released a unisex denim line and more fashion brands are launching gender-neutral collections. Here is how to inject a bit of that runway fluidity effortlessly into any wardrobe.
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A CUT ABOVE “Historically, [fashion] has dictated what jobs people can do, how someone can act, how someone can dress and that limits someone’s ability to truly self-express and reach their full potential.” Whether in the form of tailored cropped trousers or double breasted Jackets, oversized coats or a crisp white shirt, the staple of any gender-fluid wardrobe is those versatile tailored pieces.
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Left: Adrienne JĂźliger by Claudia Knoepfel for Vogue Paris April 2016 Right: Diane Kruger for Vogue Germany 2010
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Fluid Fashion is not just about men in skirts and women in suits. It is fashion without boundaries. Since its re-emergence on the catwalk in the mid-nineties thanks to collections such as Jean-Paul Gaultier’s 1984 And God Created Man collection showcasing chiffon on men, the fluid fashion trend has shown to have a massive impact, not only on the runway, but also to fashion on the streets. As we edge ever closer to a fluid world, fashion, like society, is clearly not opting for hard and fast rules.