The idea of a detox, whether it be a week spent drinking green juice or a night spent without phone in hand, compels people with a single promise: purity.
When we become too soiled by life’s muck and grime, we pause to detox, to cleanse away all the filth and slush that we’ve accumulated.
We meditate, pray, go without carbs, clean out the closet and swear off the alcohol.
For a few minutes, an hour, a jumble of weeks, we purge ourselves from the layers of filth, all in an effort to reveal a purified core of authenticity and liberation.
With the new year, resolutions of detox and restraint are prevalent, so it isn’t revolutionary for Vogue’s January issue to prescribe a detox for fashion in the coming year.
Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour wrote about Alexander Wang’s spring 2016 collection as an example of the year’s refreshed style.
“As with many of the best shows that we saw, Alexander’s gave us clothes that illustrated the huge shift away from the superperfect, supermatched, and superpolished toward what can only be described as imperfect, human-scaled beauty,” Wintour wrote.
Again, a wish for purity in the new year is by no means radical, but the importance of cleansing in this new year sparks curiosity.
In a notable display of purification, Diane Von Furstenberg’s spring/summer 2016 collection bounced with flavor and vivacity in breezy wrap dresses.
Alessandro Michele crafted Gucci’s gratuitous frills and metallic prints.
Even Balenciaga’s delicate slips glided across the runway in an effortless drift.
2015 may have dealt with more dirt than it deserved, but a detox is in order. And 2016 is ready for its juice cleanse.
After a decade of fashion’s rigid minimalism, suppressive normcore and monotonous uniformity, why is the new year the time for style to hit its reset button?
Simply put, 2015 had too much slush.
Looking back at the past 12 months, a plague of struggles, terror and grief stained the tailored fabric of society.
Mass shootings became seemingly daily occurrences.
This seemingly incurable epidemic resurfaced on social media feeds and front pages seemingly without end.
Racial tensions escalated after YouTube videos emerged showing Eric Garner in a chokehold, pressed to the New York City sidewalk. Another video showed us a black teenage girl dragged across her classroom in South Carolina.
The filth and grime of 2015 was apparent, and through it all, the year’s fashion was mirroring every stain.
Collections became stoic, with sharp proportions and tailoring.
Fabrics held stiff and rigid without mercy for movement.
No hair or stitch fell out of place, all elements homogeneously striving for a systematic display of constraint.
2015 was an important mark for the apparel industry to hit. After such a year of horror and sacrifice, it only makes sense that we need to go back to a purer, more authentic form of style.
Fashion in its literal sense is meant to satisfy the human need of clothing, but fashion in its cultural sense is less about the individual and more about society.
It looks at the current season of the world and decides what to say, what to question and what to change.
Through a new year of sartorial choices and trends, fashion is prescribing the detox that 2016 needs.
