The question is: Why? Is it designers being realistic about what their customers are actually wearing every day? Is it confusion about what to wear post-Covid, mixing WFH basics with dress-to-impress styles? Is it us oxymoronically finding a new uniform in our rejection of existing ones?
Try all of the above.
The fall 2023 runways saw an abundance of power-tailoring—Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli created an entire collection around the black tie, tweaking the idea of formalwear. Anthony Vaccarello looked at Working Girl for his Saint Laurent fall lineup, which took the pinstripe out of the boardroom. As leading designers decontextualize these uniforms, we are bound to find the comfort of homogeneity elsewhere. Enter: athleisure.
But as the pandemic put the final nail on the coffin of blazers, ties, and pencil skirts (or slacks) as our only options for work attire, it created confusion as to what we are supposed to wear and where. It’s no wonder that folks are dressing in activewear to grab lunch or drinks on a weekend, to shop, or to simply exist outside. If our casualwear—jeans, cargos, denim jackets, and simple button downs—is now our work attire, what else would we wear to dress casually? Turns out Jonathan Anderson had the right idea when he sent heather-gray long-johns paired with a wrinkled shirt down his fall 2023 Loewe menswear runway in January. Gucci’s Prince of Wales suit—double breasted jacket and biker shorts—seems like a viable idea now.
In hindsight, Mrs. Prada’s tongue in cheek take on athleisure now comes across as a more earnest idea. At Miu Miu, the designer emphasized the ubiquity of athleisure with zip hoodies in heather-gray knits or stiff leathers paired with ordinary tights, leggings, and sometimes nothing but underwear. (“I love it! If I were younger, I would go out in panties!” she said after the show.) In a season that was decisively dressed-up, Miu Miu reflected the reality behind put-togetherness, particularly for a generation that is significantly less interested in performing sophistication. Gen Z generally seems to care less about perfect tailoring and more about comfort.