One of the weird realities of covering the women’s wear collections, or the women’s wear-with-some-men’s wear collections, is how rarely you hear designers talking about actual women.
You know: the ones who will eventually wear their clothes.
Miuccia Prada does it. Rick Owens did it after his show on Thursday — or at least about one woman in particular: Marlene Dietrich. She was, he said, the source code for his thinking about “behavior during wartime” and how that might look: like glamour-puss vagabonds after the apocalypse in strapless columns of Kevlar or dangling fringe, mastodon coats made of longhaired goat hide and sequin-festooned platform boots.
But more often, the talk is of construction, or concept, or art. So to hear Sarah Burton backstage after a magnetic Givenchy show discussing “how women put themselves back together” every day and how their lives are made up of “memories and history and fragmented moments,” all embedded into pieces amassed over time that add up to not just a look but an individual, was to suddenly be reminded — oh yeah, that’s what this is all about.
It’s what her Givenchy is about, anyway.
Or so was clear from her multilayered third collection. Ms. Burton makes men’s wear, of course (Timothée Chalamet is a fan). But she has made women, or more accurately, womanliness, her lodestar. It’s a quality that rarely comes up in fashion, perhaps because it implies a certain fulsomeness and maturity that is generally deprioritized by an industry that calls all models “girls.” That makes it all the more striking to see.
To this end, her first two seasons were a sort of foundational exercise, complete with a lot of foundation garments that tended toward the basic, at least at first glance. This time around, you could see where it had been leading.
Almost everything was cut with a curve, even the tuxedo suiting. Nothing was corseted or constricting; more like enabling, in the most productive way.
Backward shirts came with stiffened collars turned up, as if they were cupping the face. Empire-waisted slip dresses in jewel-toned velvet or leather (Ms. Burton has made leather a core part of her vocabulary, and it gives even her sweeter styles a tougher, fetishistic edge) were cut to the top of the thigh on one leg, as was a bright red sweater dress.
Many looks were backless, most temptingly high-necked evening halter tops spilling over double-pleated trousers. There was even some vampy leopard.
And there were a lot of what seemed to be Vermeer hats that turned out to be T-shirts pulled over the head, with the sleeves knotted behind, as if the person underneath had started to pull her top over her head and then just decided to get to work. Mixed in with it all were some strict pinstripes, complete with ties, for a little executive cosplay. Also models of a variety of ages and sizes.
Ms. Burton’s work has been a standout on the red carpet this year. She was responsible for Jennifer Lawrence’s naked dress at the Golden Globes in January and Gwyneth Paltrow’s black lace frock at the Actor Awards this past Sunday. You can see why such women might be drawn to her ideas about what it means to come into your power, and to dress for it.
It would be reductive to say this is about a woman designing for women — that it’s a question of gender. There are plenty of women designers who love an abstract concept (Rei Kawakubo, anyone?), just as there are male designers who consider the bodies inside their clothes when they make those clothes.
When it comes to Ms. Burton’s Givenchy, though, there is a generosity not just to her use of material but to her approach that seems personal. It’s not a matter of yardage, or pattern. It’s a matter of principle.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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