The Style Files - Eclectic Allure : The New Muse
At a recent conversation over lunch with my closest friend and her niece, we discussed unconventional beauty, in particular the Carey Mulligan effect and how there’s nothing more compelling than the appearance of a new muse in fashion. The magic of fashion happens when a fresh description of female beauty is messaged out into fashions consciousness and hits all the right notes with our times.
The Glamazon, perfect girlie-girl a new type of muse has taken a backseat and what has emerged is a whimsical figure who is elusive and hard to pigeonhole. Her appearance is tinged with a sense of sadness, a slightly broken spirit yet sufficiently confident to carry off her take on fashion. She is partial to quoting lines from Wes Anderson’s films, The Grand Budapest Hotel, being her favourite. This beguiling creature walks (and often dances) and dresses to the beat of her own drum. She’s a master mixer who gets dressed by instinct rather than rules.
It would seem that for A/W 15 in the workspaces of on-point designers, matchy-matchy were outfits outlawed and a universal ban on symmetry: in hairstyles, eyebrow shapes and hemlines was put into effect. The campaigners of this semi tragic, poetic muse share a love of nuance and a respect for imperfection.
Alessandro Michele, the Italian creative director of Gucci whose rave reviewed first collection for the fabled house, put bespectacled models in pussy-bow blouses and pleated midi-skirts, chiffon tea dresses with eccentric appeal. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben was quoted in the show notes: ‘Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands… contemporariness is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disconnection.’ The new Gucci girl under Michele’s watch is an independent spirit ‘knowing’ but never a slave to fashion.
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The renewed love of the notion that clothes can carry memories, strong, independent spirits and the look of repair and patchwork reverberates through the season. Christopher Bailey for Burberry Prorsum was all about patchwork, print and colour and his collection had a 1970s charm. Erdem favoured jacquards in graduating tones with hand-frayed edges and at Chloe Floral Velvets took centre stage. The allure is the fabrics with their lyrical, mysterious charm.
Investment in a different kind of chic, especially one that revolves around a whimsical, unstructured, eclectic look, needs consideration. The best guide is your instinct, a sense of proportion and humour. This new mood and new muse doesn’t care for what others think and thats the spirit in which to embrace this aesthetic.
By Minoli Ratnayake
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