Crowd Shortcuts – a quick chat about something that’s caught our attention. This week, how the fashion for clothes that shroud or reshape give confidence to take up space in the world…
What’s all this then? This summer, Kanye West took girlfriend Bianca Censori to church, with her concealed by a cushioned wall encircling her neck and black fabric that stretched all the way over her head and torso with no arm holes or sleeves. Also seeking clothing for concealment at a blockbuster premiere, actress Hayley Atwell hid half her body in oversized-plus trousers by Ashi Studio – opting out of the red carpet norm for female actors. Meanwhile weeks earlier, at London’s fashion week, models had their necks and ankles covered up by super voluminous ruffles, and wore big brooches that were more armour than accessory.
Finally, a stylish alternative to the kaftan! Yes, these clothes look pretty darn cool. But more than that – and yes, even more importantly – these cover-ups will administer safety. They are clothes that give anonymity, or they rebuff the male gaze, or literally allow the wearer to take up more space – actions desired by celebs and people in everyday life alike.
A cover-up? Sounds like the opposite of the bodycon trend… Not at all, and that’s what makes this so exciting. The original bodycon clothing equalled women being tightly stitched into their dress to experience the suffocating grip of passing as skinny and hot. But these clothes are still look-at-me fashion like the bodycon dresses that clung to every line of the figure. Yet it’s moved on to reflect our current needs: clothes that provide service to the wearer (safety, or space) as well as body confidence that is no longer predicated on binaries like fat or thin, small or large.
Stylish clothes serving up body confidence for more of us? We like… And there’s more. Let’s look at how pop star Sam Smith doesn’t let their gender identity be reduced to choice of clothing by embracing this new bodycon trend. At the Brit music awards earlier this year, their outfit by HARRI featured a high neck, inflated arms and legs and a zip-up design over the chest – mocking the traditional concepts of couture that flaunt the perfect shape of the body. Embracing sculptural clothes was a way for them to comprehensively present their identity as not narrowly defined, as fluid, as a new shape entirely.
Body and soul confidence, then… and clothes helping us to have the space for that exploration is quite a cultural moment. Holding space and…
… literally giving space… You’ve got it. In our post-pandemic world it is also quite handy to have a large floral accessory that both serves looking stylish and makes people stand some distance from you.
TL;DR: What to wear has always been a dance between personal expression and the need to pass in the world at large. This new body-con enables both: to be confident about your expression of self in clothes, and feel safe doing so. It takes the body-conditioning – that we all need to look a certain way – out of body-con. And that’s true body confidence for all.