What would a shared wardrobe for men and women look Like?
The spring-summer 2023 shows were the most gender-fluid yet, but this time they come with real sex appeal, says Marie Kelly.
The biggest trend of this season was not a colour, print, texture or silhouette, it was the trending of men’s and women’s fashion towards each other. Never before have the new collections showed such little distinction between what men and women are wearing. From metallics and florals to double denim and summer leather, with a few cropped tops thrown in, menswear and womenswear mirrored each other in several key directions, reflecting many brands’ desire to simply design for people rather than traditional binaries that equate women with sequins and men with suits. There is a wonderful opportunity to pick ‘n mix from this season’s offerings, which means that, like Harry Styles, who sported an array of both Bowie and Diva-esque looks at this year’s Grammy Awards, you can take your fashion references from where you will, irrespective of gender or pronoun, because the boundaries between menswear and womenswear have been blurred like never before.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Irish designer Simone Rocha’s first foray into menswear this season. Deconstructed trousers, voluminous tulle bomber jackets, ruched shirting, delicate daisy embroidery and pearl-trimmed peter pan collars brought her signature gothic femininity to a collection that nonetheless embodied a tough utilitarian vibe via belt loops, longer-length zips, adjustable straps and parachute tape. She infused her menswear edit with powerful female associations in the same way that she has always peppered her womenswear with a subversive strength – the frothiest of frocks often anchored by sturdy leather brogues or ballerina pumps with incongruous thick rubber trek soles.
Simone Rocha infused her menswear edit with powerful female associations in the same way that she has always peppered her womenswear with a subversive strength
Rocha isn’t the only designer to have set her cap at menswear for the first time this year, with Vietnamese-American designer Peter Do showing a line-up of impeccably tailored separates that toyed with our expectations of what’s ‘masculine’ and what’s ‘feminine’. K-Pop superstar Lee Jeno opened the show in a double-breasted black jacket – so far so predictable – but flashed his muscled back through an oversized triangle cutout as he retreated down the runway. Open side seams were another design detail that flirted with our assumptions. While the collections could be described as genderless, there was no absence of sex appeal – a criticism that has often been levelled at unisex or gender-neutral clothing in the past – with elevated fabrics, such as silk, satin and chiffon, and elegant draping, bringing a modern sensuality to both mens- and womenswear.
Slouchy suiting, then, is one of this season’s most prominent trends across the board, with Jil Sander, Sacai, Issey Miyake and Gucci, to name but a few, exploring not simply what post-pandemic tailoring looks like, but what shape a shared wardrobe for men and women might take. Harry Styles’ Gucci high-waisted, wide-leg trousers, sparkly tank top and boxy tuxedo jacket, which he wore to accept his awards last month is as crossover as fashion comes. Sacai manipulated pleating to create movement and fluidity, imbuing its tailoring with an ease and freedom that belied its signature structural and architectural elements, and flattered both sexes. Molly Goddard, who made her name with oversized tulle dresses, took what first seemed like an unlikely foray into menswear two years ago, but has made it look as inherent to her brand DNA as those voluminous skirts, showcasing colour-drenched knits and slightly shrunken tailoring for men – perfect for borrowing from your boyfriend – and boyish, low-slung pants alongside her signature statement skirts for women.
Of course, borrowing works both ways these days, with head-to-toe denim in almost all collections giving us unsettling millennium flashbacks of Britney and Justin in matching his ‘n hers. Twenty-odd years on and denim is once again appearing printed, distressed, ripped, fringed and studded, and for many, the current take on double denim won’t have quite enough irony to distinguish it from the Y2K original. Prada, however, made it look modern for men, while Burberry gave it a casual luxe for women. The other option is to settle comfortably into a big pair of billowing jeans, as seen on Kate Moss for Bottega Veneta and at Louis Vuitton and JW Anderson menswear. An elevation of lockdown loungewear, they have a 1990s low-slung waistline which brings a sexiness that balances the silhouette-swamping fit. For something a little more cost-of-living-crisis appropriate, try H&M’s baggy cargo jeans and wide, low-rise jeans.
If SS23 sounds decidedly muted, it did, in fact, mark a significant return to print, something that’s been mostly absent from collections since Covid tempered everybody’s exuberance for feel-good florals, playful polka dots and romantic painterly gestures. Irish print designer Ruth Gallagher, who moved back to Dublin last year after more than a decade designing for Alexander McQueen menswear, Erdem, Stine Goya and Baum und Pferdgarten, describes the SS23 collections as “really hopeful”, citing the party-filled atmosphere of the late noughties as a key reference point for designers from Christopher Kane to Holly Fulton. “In season 3 of Emily in Paris, Patricia Field styled Lily Collins in a 2009 Mary Katranzou print,” she tells me, “and Christopher Kane brought back print elements from the same period for this season.”
This year’s botanicals, she explains, took on a fresh dimension, as designers experimented with scale. Standout examples came from Dhruv Kapoor, which defined boxy menswear tailoring with large floral, sequinned embroideries; Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen, who used a single oversized iris motif on dresses and jackets; and Loewe for its sculptural anthuriums that appeared almost like breastplates – bringing to mind another noughties reference; Carrie Bradshaw’s 2008 white and gold floral dress worn in the opening scene of that first Sex and the City movie. The big takeaway from these brands seemed to be, ‘No shrinking violets here please’. Flowers had power, and they said fun.
Other popular patterns for the season were stripes and checks (Acne, Kenzo, Sportmax), dots (Marni, Chanel, Proenza Schueler) and painterly prints. “Of the latter, Balmain was the standout show for me,” says Gallagher, who now has her own design consultation in Dublin, “Channelling the style and themes of Renaissance art through motifs of heaven and hell and cherubic figures, it was confrontational but romantic, feminine but forceful.”
The same could be said of the Battlestar Galactica-style trend for silver metallics, although for SS23, it has none of the stiffness sported in such retro space-age television shows. For both sexes, metallic looks had an unexpected but modern, undone appearance, emerging in fluid silhouettes and floaty separates, and paired with simple white T-shirts and trainers for a freshness that left us in no doubt that this was a spring/summer season and not a festive one. A sleeveless silver top and palazzo pants appeared in Erdem’s menswear show, but would have sat just as beautifully in a womensear offering, and Giorgio Armani’s liquified-looking louche silver suits brought a tactile sensuality to the brand’s menswear offering. If in the past, wearing silver was about strutting your stuff, this season it’s more about showcasing a quiet confidence. Think Victoria Beckham in that elegant but restrained liquid silver metallic floor-length gown she wore to Brooklyn’s wedding last year. Gucci, Altuzarra, Loewe and Michael Kors showed the standout silver dresses of the season, and Fendi translated it spectacularly well in textured, languid separates. On the high street, Arket’s exquisite lustrous woven top with loose-cut sleeves captures this summer’s metallic moment perfectly, while Cos’s recycled sequinned mini dress looks as effortless to throw on as a T-shirt.
If you prefer to mix up your metallics with colour, acid green was the most dominant shade of the season. Fendi married it with mint and tan for an elevated reinterpretation of a colour more closely associated with eighties’ workout wear, and Miu Miu peppered it across a collection of no-nonsense utilitarian neutrals in the form of leather thong ankle and knee-high boots. For anyone with a Celtic pallor, footwear is probably the best way to embrace this tricky-to-wear shade. The Pantone Colour of the Year, on the other hand, called Viva Magenta, brought warmth to both the collections and to complexions. Described as a “nuanced crimson tone”, in layman’s terms, it’s a rich jammy-looking shade, and it was expressed best for spring/summer by Issey Miyake in a teal colour-blocked sleeveless sculptural dress and in Prabal Gurung’s fairytale off-the-shoulder tulle gown. Rick Owens made the colour his own, sending several crimson-hued outfits down his womenswear and menswear shows, translating it to utility wear as effortlessly as evening wear. Described as “brave and fearless, a pulsating colour whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration”, it certainly added to the sense of hopefulness Gallagher perceived in the season’s offerings.
Belgian designer Raf Simons expressed this same sense of positivity before he showed in London by describing the city post-Covid and post-Brexit as, “a hurt animal, but an animal that’s ready to go out again”. It’s been a tough few years for everybody, and continues to be so for many, but the fashion industry is feeling cautiously optimistic again, and for SS23, this was translated in a more profound way than simply through colour, print or playful design. It was expressed through mens- and womenswear collections, which showed a compatibility and harmony that has never felt more relevant or necessary.
This article originally appeared in Irish Tatler, March 2023