DRAPED CRUSADERS: As the social message of women’s empowerment continues to gain ground, goddess-like strength and traits are turning up in fashion.
Goddesses of all different heritages and persuasions were the focus of Li Edelkoort’s spring 2019 presentation for Trend Union at The New School in New York. The way she sees it, they are at the root of the emerging female fashion archetype for the industry with individuals determining their own goddess based on individual tastes. Predicting a revolution sparked partially from draping, folding and cuts, Edelkort expects normcore and streetwear basics to dissolve. That shift calls for “designers, not influencers,” she said.
With a myriad of colorful images that drew from art history, fashion, portraiture and nature, the trend forecaster offered a crash course in goddesses. Students and industry types learned of Aphrodite, Demeter, Hestia, Gaia, Flora & Fauna, Nike and others. Edelkoort also pointed to the increasing importance of the sack dress, regal colors and majestic fabrics. She also spoke of “this child woman” who is very dominant in society, accumulating jobs as if she is accumulating pairs of shoes. “She lives her life like a ribbon, like a bracelet — there is not a clear direction. She is just toying with life. It is only in life that she gets more stable,” Edelkoort said.
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Describing the feline archetype and hints of that in fashion, Edelkoort noted how cats have very lean and very pliable bodies like a dancer’s body, and a dignity that you can observe from afar…” Attendees also learned that Diane von Furstenberg, whom Edelkoort considers to be a feline archetype in the way that she sits and moves, was in the front row. The designer did not sound convinced. “Oh my God, I don’t even like cats. Am I? I don’t know,” she said. “I actually like to be the warrior. I’ve been that before.”
Trend Union will hold another seminar on this topic in New York on January 25 and a men’s-oriented event on contemporary gods on Dec. 5 in Stockholm.
In New York this week, Edelkoort also cautioned the crowd, “This is very important. If you have children, try to not let them change their noses. Look at how beautiful it is to actually have a nose and how important it is also to have nose in the sense of how we are, how we perform and how we will be. Let’s have a nose for direction.”