Whether it’s a little white dress over a New York City subway grate or a cone bra on a statement-making pop star, the clothes we wear have the power to project all kinds of messages. The very existence of certain garments and silhouettes is often proof of moments of significant social change; we communicate the things we cannot say through the clothes we wear, which in turn can determine how we move about the world and where we’re allowed to go. In many ways, any history of fashion, however incomplete, is a history of us all. It’s also a survey of tailoring, textiles, innovation, infighting, business, bravado and, above all, beauty — ugliness, too.
With that in mind, T assembled a panel of esteemed judges — the fashion authority Pamela Golbin, formerly the chief curator of fashion and textiles at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris; the New York-based stylist and T contributor Matt Holmes; T’s creative director, Patrick Li; the American fashion designer Rick Owens; and the Italian gallerist, president of Fondazione Sozzani and founder of the 10 Corso Como concept store, Carla Sozzani — to choose the 25 most influential women’s wear collections from the end of World War II to now. Before convening, each of them nominated about 10 collections he or she deemed worthy of inclusion. Then, on a Wednesday in late July, they gathered online to whittle down the list, which mostly reflects the order in which they were discussed rather than their ranking. There were a few clear favorites — everyone agreed to include at least one season of Comme des Garçons — and many tough omissions. (Yes, we know we’re light on Italians.) It was often difficult to single out one collection from a designer’s body of work, although that was the task; equally tricky was separating the clothing itself from the spectacle of a show. To be considered, a collection didn’t need to have appeared on a runway, and not all runway shows met the criteria. For example, the 1973 Battle of Versailles fund-raiser didn’t qualify because there were teams; for the monumental event, five French couturiers (Marc Bohan for Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin, Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and Emanuel Ungaro) showed against five of their American peers (Bill Blass, Stephen Burrows, Oscar de la Renta, Halston and Anne Klein). We also agreed not to consider anything by the panelists themselves, which is why Owens isn’t on the final list, despite his multiple nominations.
Finally, two collections have been so instrumental to the development of contemporary fashion that we felt they were almost too obvious to take up a pair of precious slots. The first arrived in 1947, when a relatively young French designer named Christian Dior debuted a feminine New Look. Dresses with sloped shoulders were cinched tight at the waist, as were shawl-collared jackets worn with voluminous skirts that created not just an hourglass figure but an opulent antidote to the austerity of the era’s military uniforms. The second was an argument against the first, by the French couturier and milliner Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel — whose designs in the 1920s and ’30s communicated pragmatism and independence, and who felt Dior had done a disservice to liberated women. In 1954, at the age of 70, she came out of retirement, turning her classic tweed suits — updated during that period with a slim skirt and a collarless jacket with braided trim — into a repudiation of her competitor’s primmer ideals.Read more at:formal dresses sydney | short formal dresses