WHY THE MOST DARING DESIGNERS ARE GOING PRACTICAL FOR S/S 2021

WHY THE MOST DARING DESIGNERS ARE GOING PRACTICAL FOR S/S 2021

The current pandemic has had huge impacts on fashion. One such impact is that the most daring designers have turned to practicality. I love these daring designers, those who give us clothes from the edges. However, often the runways are filled with unique creations that leave us asking where are the clothes? Moreover, fashion shows are often the place to highlight the most creative and outrageous. The daring designers who take chances and shock us are going practical, but why?

The why is individual to each designer, however, overall practicality has fallen over S/S 2021. With the advance of the current pandemic, the consumers' needs are changing. While we all love party dresses what happens when there are no parties. The current environment has made many reevaluate their choices. Designers have met these changing attitudes by giving us more practical collections.

The S/S 2021 shows broadcast across computer screens and zoom meetings. However, we have heard that these digital shows are not as thrilling and not as good as the traditional. As an industry fashion relishes its originality but is also steeped in traditions. Since this pandemic, the ability to honor these traditions have been disrupted. These traditions have all but disappeared. No longer are crowds welcomed to fashion week venues to see and be seen. While this is a loss, it has also had an upside.

DARING DESIGNERS S/S 2021.

While we expect daring designers will give us exuberance, we are not disappointed when they take that exuberance and give us wearable clothes. For the first time in a long time, these looked like clothes that were meant to be worn. The years of outrageous frocks living on a tightrope have given way to something more thoughtful and realistic this season. Garments hit the runway with a new grounded sensibility, inspired by lounge-wear, sweat-suits and day dresses. S/S 2021 has stretched the daring designers to venture into new avenues of creativity. These recent paths are exciting. They combine the creative and the practical to create what might well become known as a contemporary sportswear.

DARING DESIGNERS S/S 2021

MOLLY GODDARD

One daring designer that always excites me is Molly Goddard (see my last post). My delight with her S/S 2021 is exemplified by her ability to never sacrifice her exuberance while giving us a more utilitarian collection. While Goddard creates the most exciting tulle party dresses, she has adapted her exotic nature to give us a more practical collection. Ruffled day dresses, tulle skirts, and even jeans give us a look into a world where you work from home. Her cheerful palette has zest and is hopeful. A collaboration with Uggs, marries their chunky shoes with her statement-making dresses giving us our new marching orders.

DARING DESIGNERS S/S2021

DRIES VAN NOTEN

Dries Van Noten is a daring designer because of his use of color and pattern. The label is known for it putting on some of the most creative runway shows in Paris. Dries Van Noten’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection was developed during the lockdown, in the early stages at least. The designer was working from his home in the countryside outside Antwerp and communicating with his team via Zoom.

“It was a time to think about what’s going to be important in the future; will there still even be fashion in the future? Talking with my creative team one thing became clear: the collection had to be rather simple, rather straightforward but not boring – fresh and optimistic. We wanted to find opportunity in limitation. We looked at a lot of things, we talked about light, about colour. We wanted it to be about individuality, not uniformity, about open-mindedness. And we talked about beauty but not about beauty in the past – about a very active beauty, about finding beauty in smaller things.” Dries Van Noten - An Other magazine

Dries Van Noten gives us a collection that is optimistic and beautiful. I have been a fan of this label for a longtime. I hope you enjoy the shots from his S/S 2021.

DARING DESIGNERS S/S2021

CHRISTOPHER JOHN ROGERS

I have a soft spot for this young gay black designer (covered in my post-Black LGBTQ+ Fashion Designers We Should Celebrate). He has been on an upward trajectory since he started his label in 2016. While on this meteoric rise, Rogers has had little time for contemplation, that time came when we entered lockdown. Roger's clothes are glamour personified, and his signature gowns have become the favorites of the celebrity A-listers.
However, with time to consider his S/S 2021 collection, like many designers, Rogers stripped things down. This collection still has plenty to please his stable of celebrity fans but also caters to everyday people in the search for some luxury. This collection has an elegant simplicity with a color palette drawn from a box of Crayola crayons.

DARING DESIGNERS S/S2021

MSGM

Since I am writing about daring designers, I would be remiss not to look at MSGM and its designer Massimo Giorgetti. Giorgetti spent the first three months of the lockdown held up in his Milan studio. Significantly, all the designers I have written about in this post were changed by these periods of isolation. This is true for Giorgetti “Everyone changed during the lockdown, and I changed too.” The result is a radical rethinking of the codes of MSGM, founded as a streetwear brand with an emphasis on youth. Simply put, the spring collection is simple.

What Massimo Giorgetti created at MSGM is a collection of real clothes for real women. Of course, he never lost his love of eye-popping colors. What did change was a move to sustainable fabrics. The collection features organic cotton linen and recycled nylon. MSGM S/S 2021 is a simpler, more edited collection embracing what he defined as “an optimistic nostalgia,” Giorgetti also introduced bucolic elements, including a wheat print, delicate embroideries, and 3-D beaded applications of bunches of grapes, softening the utility look of workwear jackets and carpenter pants.