With the recent looks that were served at the Schiaparelli fashion show in Paris, a social media frenzy occurred that is not seen often in the mainstream media for the most gauche, campy and outrageous fashion looks. The A-list celebrities on the guest list dressed to kill. Doja Cat dressed head to toe in 30,000 red Swarovski crystals all the way from her new shaved head down to her matching red dress. Kylie Jenner was also seen in a classic, form-fitting, long black dress, with a lion’s head as an accessory.
These were not the only looks that questioned the norm. Throughout the Schiaparelli show, pieces like large quilt fabric sewn into a fitting jacket and the use of waves and ripples used to make a head to toe ensemble strutted down the runway. This is the fashion that we see on Haute Couture weeks, and yet we are never quite as shocked on the day-to-day by the clothes we see. So where does this fashion go and why don’t we see appreciation for it beyond the Vogue website?
While I have always had an eye for fashion, I have never appreciated the trends that we see on Tik Tok and everywhere on social media once the craze started. While I have never thought the athletic-wear trend that overtakes the streets of East Lansing was all that fashionable and forward, I adhere to it on a daily basis due to the normality of seeing it in every class I go to. I heart the detailed corset looks and over the top menswear ensembles on Pinterest, but I never find the courage to wear them in public, switching for jeans and a sweater on a daily basis. While I find the fashion on the runway stunning in every way possible, most people perceive it as over the top and unwearable.
That’s the point.
Fashion is the art form people forgot was art. There’s a reason we have so many museums pointed towards this very form. Some fashion is meant to fit people, and others were meant to fit into exhibits. Now, I’m not on some grandstand saying everyone should be purchasing million-dollar outfits. I buy my clothes exclusively from the places I worked in retail and thrift stores. My style is the same flared leggings and comfortable sweater that everyone else is sporting, but I think people forget that this fashion is not meant to be worn. It is meant to be admired and pined after, like a painting you want to hang in your apartment so everyone knows you have a sense of aesthetic. I think people don’t appreciate what fashion was meant to be: camp.
The term camp is defined by the use of irony, humor, and exaggeration. It was most notably appreciated as one of the recent Met Gala themes in 2019. All the celebrities came dressed in outfits that would never be worn in the public eye. Zendaya was dressed as Cinderella, Jared Leto brought a replica of his head as an accessory, and Billy Porter wore wings and was carried into the Gala by an army of henchmen. The expression seen at the 2019 Met Gala is what all gauche fashion designers aspire to be: out of the norm.
Fashion is about the expression of what you want to put out in the world. While everyone is wearing Shein tube tops to the bar, fashion designers are creating looks that will carry weight in history for the looks and inspiration that we remember. What makes fashion so fun is the way we are able to wear and style these clothes that don’t make us look strange, but damn cool. When we left the era of the smock and not showing our ankles, fashion continued to open doors to the artists that didn’t see a canvas as a blank sheet of paper, but as the people they see on the street every day.
That is why gauche fashion is so important to emphasize and celebrate: if we didn’t have the outrageous, we would be stuck in a time where clothes would only be needed to keep us out of the nude. Even those clearance bins at fast fashion stores take inspiration from these looks on a smaller, more digestible and inexpensive scale. While we realize that this is the fashion that was meant to be our every day, we need to appreciate every hand-stitched piece made with seventeen drawings of the same dress. We need to appreciate the love and passion these designers craft with, pulling inspiration from different eras and styles. We need to find the love that we have for our favorite pair of jeans and direct it towards the dresses we will never get to wear, but dream about. The art of fashion is about the art form that has never died out or gotten lazy. Fashion will continue to evolve throughout time and be the art form we look to categorize an era.
The next time you see Bella Hadid wear her trendy tracksuit, think about the streetwear designers that sat with a needle and thread, making the most ridiculously beautiful and loud version of that very outfit. You’ll see fashion the way I see it: the inspiration from the designers that dared to be out of the ordinary.