RESILIENCE IN ALL ITS SHADES
Tue 28 Feb
Words Mahoro Seward
Photography Alexandre Mouchet
RESILIENCE IS A COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE. ITS AESTHETIC, HOWEVER? NOT SO MUCH. HERE, I-D FASHION FEATURES EDITOR MAHORO SEWARD PONDERS WHETHER ‘RESILIENT DRESSING’ REALLY EXISTS – AND, IF SO, WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.
Though resilience is widely discussed in abstract terms, its aesthetic qualities are rarely broached. Of course, that makes sense – the situations and contexts that demand resilience of us are not typically ones in which looks are front of mind. Still, fashion – a medium in constant dialogue with the times we live – is inevitably a product of the same circumstances that compel us to dig deep and find the strength to power through. And we, the aesthetically inclined creatures we are, are naturally drawn to clothes that reinforce our sense of resolve. Drawing this parallel is all very well, but it does then prompt a question: what, exactly does resilient dressing look like? How, in essential terms, can we dress to weather the storm?
Granted, there are about as many answers to that as there are fashion designers. For someone like Ester Manas, her brand and aesthetic is rooted in an irrepressible desire to create clothing that accommodates and celebrates bodies that have historically been made to feel lesser by the fashion mainstream. Her defiance in the face of oppressive body standards is exemplified by her creative process. After all, her choice to focus her talents on designing garments for curve women will have necessitated an entirely bespoke creative process – potentially entailing things like the creation of new pattern blocks and the commissioning of custom mannequins – given the fashion industry's lack of accommodating infrastructures for anything beyond a ‘typical’ UK 4 to 12 size run.
Grappling with undemocratic societal norms is a motivating force for Charles Jeffrey, the creative director of Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, whose work is a brazen celebration of the holistic expression of all gender identities. Both through the garments and the people cast to wear them, an ethos of staunch inclusivity pronounces itself through the presentations of archetypal menswear and womenswear garments on traditionally masculine, traditionally feminine and non-binary bodies, scrambling still-prevalent expectations of who should be allowed to wear what. At a time when the rights and liberties of non-cisgendered bodies are being dramatically infringed in ostensible bastions of ‘liberal’ democracy like the UK, it’s a powerful and necessary message.
In the case of a brand like (di)vision, resilience is a prerequisite for their mission to lessen the fashion industry’s toxic environmental footprint. In their SS23 show, though – staged in the wooded fringes of Copenhagen – the notion was broached in a far more literal sense. Models strode through a lamp-lit glade wearing khaki and moss green tube dresses, bombers, threadbare knits and patched denim jackets, echoing the tones of the surrounding foliage. In what felt like an attempt to draw parallels between today’s sociopolitical climate and that of the late 60s and early 1970s – the closing years of the Vietnam War and a time of global economic downturn – these camouflage-clad looks were then tempered by a suite of softer pieces that suggested counter-cultural dissent – patchwork check shirts, flowing halter dresses and blouses in hippyish paisleys, and vests in bright, patchwork faux fur.
Of course, given the current global climate, it’s hard not to interpret the notion of resilience through the prism of today’s bleak headlines. Still, while fashion is a creative medium that is preoccupied with – and that reflects on – the sociopolitical realities of the human experience – it isn’t always quite as directly allegorical as in the examples given above. A brand worth highlighting to this end is Ottolinger, whose defiantly experimental work constitutes, in and of itself, a standing of ground against the commercial pressures to compromise on visual identity. On an aesthetic level, though, their slinky, body-flaunting garments have earned them a cult following of fiercely independent, self-assured women who know exactly how they want to dress; who are keen to use fashion to celebrate, rather than obfuscate, their bodies, but only on their own terms.
A parallel comment could be made of the work of LVMH Prize winner Nensi Dojaka, whose intricately constructed dresses – comprising yards of expertly draped silk gauze, often held together by complex spaghetti strap scaffolds – have been instrumental in making her one of today’s hottest tipped young luxury brands. Nodding to the (at the time) rebellious minimalist of 90s brands like Calvin Klein and Helmut Lang, Nensi has successfully carved out an aesthetic niche in which notions of femininity, delicacy and discretion become synonymous with strength, subverting expectations of what women’s ‘power dressing’ ought to look like.
While diverse, the throughline that ties together the designers discussed so far is their response to the world around them. Resilience, however, is not limited to dealing with the present. One could argue, in fact, that resilience is fundamentally future-minded – that it is ultimately a matter of enduring the difficulties of the current moment in the hope of prospering in the next. It’s a reading that maps well onto the work of London-based cordwainer Steven Ma, whose shoes have the air of speculative design objects lifted from a near future. In introducing slick cutouts and stepped, blockish Perspex heels to classic Chelsea boots and Mary Jane silhouettes, his pieces serve as welcome reminders of fashion’s inherently progressive nature; that the times we exist in are transient, and that what we know now will give way to new contexts and norms – and new clothes to match them.
If at this point you are expecting a tidy summary of what exactly resilient fashion looks like, I am sorry to disappoint. I should stress, however, that a neat answer would entirely defeat the point of this discussion. Living in a world in constant flux, the quality of resilience – and how it aesthetically manifests – is necessarily adaptive, too. What triggers our capacity to withstand today will, naturally, be different tomorrow – observing the contemporary fashion landscape, however, what is clear is that there will always be fashion that keeps us standing strong.