There are stragglers still coming through regarding the Fall Winter 2016/17 collections from the Big Four, but, for the most part, we now can concentrate on what has been seen and what to make of it all.
Our obsession with time and our connection to the past as well as past behaviour is acute, with the collections reflecting this. We look back to learn more about who we are as we seek answers on where we are going and whether we are repeating mistakes. To be sure, we are keenly aware of those. We see the results of our behaviour affecting our environments. Not just physical aspects like the weather and its toll on the environment, but also our cultural landscapes as well. Our technology reflects back to us our behaviour, our prejudices, our discriminations. We show ourselves the contradictions we embrace. We know equality is what is right yet we uphold inequalities such as pay issues along gender lines or opportunities for all, the Oscars being the most recent public outcry. We know violence is senseless yet watch as politics and frustration over security and self preservation turn man against man. We know to help those in need as others openly resent the disadvantaged.
Our world is awash with contradictions, clashing of ideologies and points of view, with conscience versus ego in full real-time glory. Is fashion immune? For those who have been watching the collections, the answer is clear. For those that have not, the tone of this article should be a dead giveaway: contradictions abound and designers have obliged. Within most collections we see clashing of patterns such as florals, blurred abstractions and curves with hard lines such as stripes and plaids and harsh geometrics sometimes against the calm of solids and sometimes altogether, one on top of another. We see mixing of structure with drape, soft with hard, sometimes all at once fighting for placement on the wearer. unlikely contradicting textiles jump together, while contrast in colours and contrast trims all at once join in the cacophony that is our world translated into the material. And as everything at once is thrust forward onto our backs, we take it on. There are too many examples to list designers. This is a very universal theme for this season that begs exploration via the epitome of fashion resource, Vogue Runway.
Our lives are a constant bombardment of information at our fingertips that we wade through and digest lightly while we take on more than ever before in the name of living. Our awareness of this overwhelms us in layers...and our waiting wardrobes have the vocabulary to empathize as it seeks to explore combinations that will speak to us about what our century should mean.
While it does, it will do what we know best: to draw upon what has been in an attempt to form new thoughts until the untainted representatives of the new century come of age to speak. We at the cusp are laying the foundation vocabulary, and with our knowledge we are clearly not sticking to one thought or one period to express the world around us. Next article will explore that further while we wait for the next wave to come of age.