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THURSDAY NEWSLETTER FROM ANDREA BATILLA

WHAT IS THE POINT OF FASHION CULTURE?

Judging by the new creative director/brand pairings that are expected to redefine the fashion world this September, it’s very likely that the direction will lean toward maximalism, decoration, and expressionism. Yep. You’d better come to terms with it.

Instead of focusing on individual appointments—as nearly every commentator around the world has done so far—if we try to draw an overarching picture and identify common threads, it becomes easy, or almost natural, to imagine a world filled with prints, embroidery, ruffles, dazzling colors, and disorienting pairings.

After nearly a decade of minimalist compression—which over time turned into pure mannerism and was ultimately absorbed by the masses and fast fashion brands—a major shift is beginning to take shape on the horizon.

Quiet luxury fizzled out like a will-o'-the-wisp in a suburban cemetery, while long lines of Chinese tourists outside Lemaire boutiques signal a desire to bring home a piece of austere European elegance. In other words, the message has become extremely popular. But that’s not all.

I’m hardly the first to draw a parallel between this minimalist formalism and the notions of respectability and acceptability that right-wing ideologies around the world promote. Nor am I the first to point out that the subversive energy once carried by minimalist and conceptual fashion in the 1990s—thanks to figures like Margiela and Kawakubo—has now completely vanished, absorbed by a bourgeois, reactionary, and, in a word, outdated worldview. A whole generation of young people, having encountered it for the first time, is eager to leave it behind.

As always in times of stagnation, fashion—by its very nature unable to stand still—suddenly flings open doors that many thought were forever shut, long-abandoned because they were considered tacky, tasteless, or difficult to manage. We’re seeing early signs of this reversal in the work of Pieter Mulier at Alaïa and Alessandro Michele at Valentino—two houses not exactly known for their restraint.