The red carpets at the Venice Film Festival and last week’s Emmy Awards have marked the move from the remnants of summer style to this year’s fall fashion.
The red carpet has been swept to death with trains and capes. In Venice, the silhouette of the moment seemed to be full gowns with pooling trains seen on everyone from Vanessa Kirby in Dolce & Gabbana to Olivia Wilde in that hideous Gucci canary yellow. Florence Pugh and Tessa Thompson both took a more subversive approach to the classic silhouette — they also had trains but the engines were sheer in a nod to Gwyneth Paltrow’s goth Oscar dress from 2002.
The overwhelming consensus from these events was a turn to old Hollywood. From Elle Fanning’s gorgeous ode to golden-age Hollywood costuming icon Edith Head, to Sydney Sweeney’s significantly less successful ode to Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy gown in “Sabrina,” celebrity stylists have clearly been watching TCM’s collaboration with the Met’s Costume Institute. This turn may be due, in part, to two of September’s most anticipated films: “Blonde” with Ana de Armas and Oliva Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling.”
The naked dress, which was once nearly ubiquitous on runways and red carpets alike, was nowhere to be found. Fashion historian Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell attributes this decline, in part, to Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe’s famous naked dress to May’s Met Gala. This (somewhat) post-COVID world seems to be wholly uninterested in the mini-minimalism of the naked gown, turning, instead, to an over-the-top-maximalism. Even Taylor Swift’s Oscar de la Renta “naked dress” at the VMAs was comprised of giant silver chains. Kim Kardashian’s tasteless appropriation of the Jean Louis gown was simply the nail in the coffin.
The COVID and post-COVID athleisure, cottage-core and coastal grandmother trends that value comfort seem to be giving way to a desire for outrageous maximalism and pants with zippers. Designers seem to be throwing comfort to the wayside. Low rise everything is coming back with Miu Miu’s flagship look this season being micro-mini tennis skirts, simultaneously so low-waisted and so high cut as to require much more than an undergarment as an afterthought. Barragán’s Spring 2023 ready-to-wear line features several low-rise pieces, adorned with loud plate buckles.
To follow the logical train of Miranda Priestley’s infamous cerulean monologue, this wave of low-rise bottoms has trickled all the way down to campus. In just the first few weeks of class, there has been an amount of midriff borne by low-rise jeans and skirts thought unimaginable only a few years ago.
Although the effects of the old Hollywood resurgence are harder to see in places like Wellesley’s campus where the opportunity to wear a ballgown with a train are, regrettably, uncommon, trend analysts predict that we will see some of the golden era of Hollywood in beauty instead. Cat Quinn, a trend predictor on TikTok, predicts that the colorful french tips that dominated last year’s nail art will be replaced by 50s inspired half moon manicures in shades of red.
The trend cycle is moving at such a neck-breaking speed that by the time this article goes to print, at least one of these trends will already feel dated. For now, however, fashion and beauty trends are so loud that you will not even be able to hear yourself worry about it.
