Straight Off The Runway, Into A Real Wardrobe

Straight Off The Runway, Into A Real Wardrobe

Runway coverage has become its own kind of entertainment, watched by millions of people who will never buy any of it. What makes this season different is how little translation the clothes need to work off the schedule. This is the part of the collections that survives contact with an ordinary week.

Outerwear

Outerwear was the argument on nearly every schedule this season. Designers went long, went heavy, and mostly went single-colour, which is a direct reaction to several years of collage dressing.

More Outerwear

The second wave is the tailored coat treated as the whole outfit. Worn closed, over almost nothing, it reads deliberate in a way that layering never quite does.

Still more Outerwear

Then there is the borrowed-from-somewhere-else category, the shearlings and the military shapes, which show up whenever the mood turns practical. These shapes come back every time the cultural mood turns practical, and it has turned.

Knitwear

Knitwear on the runway is where the mills get to show off, and it shows. The gauge is finer, the shapes are closer to the body, and the sweater has been promoted from base layer to the actual point.

More Knitwear

The counter-argument is the enormous knit worn as outerwear. It is the most-copied idea from these shows and the easiest to get wrong.

Dresses

Dresses came back to the runway with a spine. Less floating, more construction, and a lot of necklines that do something specific rather than just existing.

More Dresses

The evening version has gone quieter and heavier. Satin and matte crepe replaced the sheer-and-sequin combination that dominated the last few seasons.

Tops

Tops are where designers hid the experiments. If a collection had a strange idea in it, it usually turned up here first, at a scale people will actually wear.

Skirts

Skirt length is the season's real news. Designers committed to below the knee almost unanimously, which resets what works above it.

Trousers and shorts

Trousers followed the skirts down and out. The pleat is back, which is either a return to elegance or a return to comfort depending on who is describing it.

Shoes

Footwear on these shows was deliberately unglamorous, which is its own kind of statement when everything above it is not. Flattening the shoe is how a designer signals that the clothes are meant to be walked in.

Accessories

The accessories were sparse and specific. One belt, one pair of glasses, nothing competing.

Denim

Denim on a runway is always a signal that a house wants to be worn rather than admired. This season a lot of them wanted that.

Bags

Bags were almost an afterthought on the schedule, which is unusual and probably temporary. When the clothes are doing this much, there is nothing left for an accessory to say.

Also in the edit

The pieces that do not fit a category but did the most work on the runway, usually by being the thing everything else was styled around. Styling anchors rarely get written about and almost always sell.

More from the edit

Taken together the collections argue for fewer, better-cut pieces and against the styling pile-up. That is a harder sell than a trend, but it is the one being made.

Our honest take

Our honest take: the runway is finally making clothes for people who get dressed once and leave. The theatrics moved to the styling and the casting, and the clothes themselves got noticeably more sane, which is the best thing to happen to this schedule in years.

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