FASHION
A Century of Dress
Fashion is the architecture of the body. Every silhouette is a record of how humanity once physically presented itself to the world.
The S-Bend Corset
A new corset design that straightened the abdomen and pushed the chest forward and the hips backward, creating the characteristic S-shaped silhouette of the Edwardian era. Unlike the Victorian corset, which compressed the torso symmetrically, the S-bend shifted the center of gravity, requiring women to adopt a particular posture — chest out, hips back — to remain upright. The design was promoted as a health improvement over Victorian corsetry while actually placing severe strain on the lower back.
The Directoire Dress
A high-waisted, unstructured dress inspired by the Directoire period of the French Revolution and by the fluid drapery of ancient Greek and Japanese garments, designed without a corset and allowing the natural female form to determine the silhouette. Poiret promoted it through theatrical fashion parades in his Paris salon, accompanied by Persian-inflected decor and music, positioning his clothes as art objects belonging to an imaginary Orient rather than products of the dressmaker's trade.
The Little Black Dress
A simply cut, short black crepe dress with long sleeves — so plain that American Vogue published it alongside a photograph of Henry Ford's Model T and called it "Chanel's Ford" — arguing that it would become a uniform for women of all classes as the automobile had become a vehicle for all. The original design had no embellishment, no color, and no structural complexity, deriving its elegance entirely from the quality of the fabric and the precision of the cut. Its simplicity was so radical that it read as avant-garde.
The Bikini
A two-piece swimsuit consisting of two triangles of fabric connected by ties at the hips, designed to expose the navel — an area that no manufactured garment had previously made visible. Réard named it after the Bikini Atoll, where the United States had just conducted its first postwar atomic test, intending the name to suggest an explosive impact on social mores. Unable to find a model willing to wear it, he hired a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. It was immediately banned in Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, and parts of the United States.
The "Bar" Suit
A cream shantung silk jacket with a rounded padded bust, nipped waist, and peplum, paired with a pleated black wool midi skirt — the centerpiece of Dior's first collection, presented in February 1947 on a spring morning in his Avenue Montaigne salon. The jacket required extensive internal boning and padding to achieve its sculptural shape, and the skirt used yards of fabric at a moment when fabric was still rationed in France. The effect was shocking — voluptuous, luxurious, and emphatically feminine.
The Mini Skirt
A skirt with a hemline well above the knee — initially at mid-thigh, eventually at the hip — developed by Mary Quant in her Chelsea boutique Bazaar and named, she said, after her favorite car. The design made movement and physical freedom central to its aesthetic rather than a regrettable compromise, and it was inseparable from the tights that replaced stockings in making such short hemlines wearable. Versions in Lurex, vinyl, and Op Art prints became the uniform of Swinging London.
Le Smoking
A black wool grain-de-poudre tuxedo suit with satin lapels designed specifically for women, with tapered trousers rather than a skirt, first worn publicly by model Danielle Heymann at a Saint Laurent event in 1966. Saint Laurent offered it again and again in subsequent collections — over 40 versions across three decades — treating it as a garment whose relevance was permanent rather than seasonal. He styled it with bare chest, silk evening blouse, or crisp white shirt, demonstrating its versatility as a vehicle for many different expressions of femininity.
Safety Pin Clothing
Deliberately torn and distressed garments — T-shirts slashed and held together with safety pins, muslin shirts printed with provocative images and obscene text, bondage trousers with dangling straps and zips — sold at the shop "SEX" on the King's Road in Chelsea. The aesthetic deliberately violated every convention of conventional fashion: beauty through destruction rather than construction, ornamentation through industrial hardware rather than jewels, and cultural commentary through shock rather than aspiration.
The Power Suit
A deconstructed suit for women with broad, padded shoulders, minimal internal structure, and a loose, unconstricting silhouette in luxurious neutral fabrics — a garment that combined masculine authority with Armani's signature Italian softness. The American version, promoted by designer Donna Karan's "Seven Easy Pieces" system, was typically worn with a silk blouse and heels, creating a uniform for the professional woman that communicated ambition, competence, and a careful negotiation between male professional codes and female identity.
Grunge: The Perry Ellis Collection
A runway collection for Perry Ellis featuring flannel shirts, combat boots, thermal underwear worn as outerwear, beanies, and layered thrift-store aesthetics drawn directly from the street style of Seattle's grunge music scene. The clothes were made from expensive fabrics — the flannel was fine-quality, the layering was carefully considered — but the references were deliberately low and anti-aspirational. Models wore the clothes with a studied casualness that was the antithesis of the period's dominant aesthetic of groomed perfection.
Bumster Trousers
Low-slung trousers cut to sit at the base of the spine and expose the top of the iliac crest — the "bumster" — presented as part of McQueen's "The Hunger" collection in 1996 and subsequently in several subsequent shows. McQueen said he intended to elongate the torso visually, creating a new proportion that emphasized the curve of the lower back in a way that no previous trouser had. The garment was simultaneously shocking and, in the context of the show, entirely coherent with McQueen's aesthetic of exposed vulnerability.
Louis Vuitton × Supreme
A menswear collection for Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer 2017 runway presented in the Palais Royal garden in Paris, featuring the red-and-white Supreme box logo applied to Vuitton's monogram canvas bags, Damier check jackets, and classic luxury leather goods. The collection required Louis Vuitton to temporarily license its trademark enemy — Supreme had spent years producing counterfeit LV monogram pieces — and Supreme to accept the authority of the most prestigious house in luxury goods. The runway show was staged as a protest, with protesters and police, in front of the Palais Royal.