(Un)extraordinary Innovation
BY JEANNE MALLE
I’ve always expected fashion to evolve exponentially into unusual or complex territories. Growing up, it seemed as though every season, models wore more—more color, more fabric, more volume. Even in the past few years, innovation and creativity have been habitually associated with excess. We saw this in Met Galas year after year, when the press raved about Rihanna’s layered sculptural Comme des Garçons piece in 2017, Blake Lively’s ornate Versace gown in 2018 and Lady Gaga’s bright pink Brandon Maxwell dress in 2019. Based on how I’d seen fashion advance, I was fairly certain that innovation could never be associated with the ordinary.
I recently realized I was wrong. We are in the midst of a crucial moment in fashion history wherein minimalism is replacing excess. Look at Miu Miu’s Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear collection. Or Valentino’s. Or Issey Miyake’s. These three labels were not conveniently chosen. Their designers are known for using bold textures, patterns and colors. Looking to the outrageous and the complex always seemed to be their motive, yet they’ve all experienced a simultaneous shift. Each of their collections feels quieter, perhaps due to their prevalent use of greys, browns and whites. In these collections, we see creative layering and surprising proportions, yet the products overall appear minimal. Of course, creativity and innovation remain at the core of these designs, but an unknown element has been introduced—one that rejects the notion of eccentricity. I question why this change is happening now, and why it’s happening at all.
The growing importance of street style has played a pivotal role in this transition into minimalism. Whereas photographers and fashion journalists used to focus on the action occurring on the runway, they are now giving equal attention to what is taking place off it. In the many emails I receive from Vogue Runway during fashion weeks, half of the headlines discuss designers’ collections while the other half examine the clothes donned by those attending the shows.
This has given buyers a much greater voice. Yes, the pieces that models, influencers and celebrities purchase are created by designers, but they choose what to buy and how to style it. Through street style media coverage, people pay attention to these figures and more importantly, their clothes, which serve as walking advertisements. Designers, therefore, must curate their collections to the tastes of popular opinion. In other words, the growing importance of street style has given average people enough power to determine the direction in which fashion will evolve next.
The increasing popularity of Japanese style exemplifies this infiltration and influence of streetwear. In an article called, “Tokyo Street Style Awoke Me From a Nap I Didn’t Know I Was Taking,” Haley Nahman, the Deputy Editor at Man Repeller writes, “There were t-shirts stacked on top of each other (sometimes three), collared shirts under dresses, blouses under sweaters under vests. Lots of structure and crispness and tailoring, and not just from the most intentionally dressed people but from nearly everyone.” What she describes is exactly the type of minimalist maximalism I noticed in the previously mentioned Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear collections. Tokyo residents have developed a specific and innovative take on fashion. They buy what people all over the world are buying, but style it in a way nobody has seen before. And we’re now seeing it not only reproduced in designer collections like that of Valentino, but in stores like COS, & Other Stories and A.P.C—none of which are Japanese brands.
The need to constantly produce excessive clothing lines has come to an end through the emergence of minimalism. I don’t know how long this will remain, and I recognize that many designers are still producing lavish, over-the-top collections (take Pierpaolo Piccioli’s most recent Haute Couture collection in Beijing), but I still find it important to recognize how much greater of a voice the public has since street style has become so significant. Because despite how long a trend might last or how little designers may seem to change their approach, style will never stop metamorphosing.