"Live life to express, not to impress" - Chloé AW15 notes. Fashion Month is finally over. I no longer have to be up in the dead of night with my World Clock app in hand trying to keep up with show coverage (coffee on a drip and Sims 4 on my other monitor is how I coped). This is my second season away from the fun and fervour of it all and it’s been quite something having to cover it for work but being thousands of miles away. Regardless, I wanted to write a few notes for the blog of my show highlights but before that: Chloé. Oh Chloé.
If you’re an early(ish) 20’s fashion fiend like me, you were also probably introduced to their dreamy collective via ‘those’ Lauren ballerinas, right? Scalloped edges, buttery leather, balletic grace and poise; it was, and remains, my idyllic shoe. Clare Waight Keller presented her eighth collection for the iconic Parisian fashion house on International Women’s Day, 8th March. And it came as little to no surprise that the collection – again – championed femininity in that unique, severely delicate manner we routinely identify the brand with.
Embracing Chloé’s signature coquettish girlishness, AW15 saw a definitive shift towards something more.
Yes, those 70’s references that I’m already bored to tears with remained. (This is Chloé, those perfectly flared flares are a necessity.) But sweet waistcoats, uber-Victorian blouses, chemises and one of every type of dress in the land were nonchalantly paired and spun with neatly cut scarves tied against plunging V-necks, hardy double-breasted goodness and – as I always like to see – a strikingly straight-cut top leather boot. Even more pleasing to me is the inclusion of corduroy against silk! I’m all about that
Chloé’s astute knack for balancing covetable romance with stark power-woman tailoring this season embodies precisely what I like and am at the moment. The color palette is precisely how I imagine crisp autumn afternoons to be. The Chloé girl reclines with a Chai in the morning, a few pages of her newest novella and gossamer-fine pajamas before cladding herself in a clothing-rendition of herself.
In the light of unwavering feminist movements, actions and unity of late, Waight Keller continues to embrace and celebrate femininity, yet does so with such concise precision that it felt like a naturally ground-breaking move towards the strong woman with a deft nod towards delicacy and whimsy.
I hear that the show notes this season were signed off with an anonymous, self-empowering poem and I just adore the flirty, youthful, carefree yet inherently strong aesthetic that Waight Keller presented through and through.
PS. On a more materialistic note, give me this coat, this unidentifiable piece, these boots and this dress asap.
