“Style is wearing an evening dress to McDonald’s and wearing heels to soccer. It is personality, confidence and seduction,” John Galliano defended before the press when he was in his moment of splendor in front of LVMH’s flagship, Dior, at the end of the nineties. His incredible transgressive capacity has been one of the most talked about qualities in the last Paris Fashion Week – Galliano has returned to his origins -, with his incredible show as creative director of Maison Margiela.
Once again his ability to convert Parisian bohemia into grandiloquence and theatricality in a haute couture show surprised everyone. Corsets, hourglass silhouettes and basted tailored trousers. There was a lot of color, but also looks that stuck to black and white. “I don’t know if many have thought about it, there are those who doubt that Galliano himself, who has always lived in his dreamlike and exquisitely thuggish world, did it, but many of us have remembered watching this parade the great Martin Margiela, who always opted for the white and accessories in black. White was Martin’s color, who made going to his boutiques almost like entering a pharmacy or a hospital, with the clerks in ivory-white dressing gowns,” explains Jurgen Van Leemput, from the Royal School of Fine Arts in Antwerp. , where Margiela was formed.
White thus establishes itself this spring as one of the key colors for outfits far beyond sand and the boho essence. Modest proposals, a lot of Victorian heritage in collars and cuffs and that sculptural classicism that Schiaparelli and Simone Rocha have mainly put on the catwalk. White will always be on the seashore, but this season it is also an aesthetic explosion in cities with a continental climate like London or Paris. That is why we see it combined with punk elements and especially with its chromatic opposite, black. Lace and punk.
After many seasons with prints as the common denominator of many of the trends, sobriety returns, but with a certain rebellion. It is that Victorianism and that Parisian palace revisited to demonstrate that there is no pure soul. Hermès and Dior have confirmed this with neat garments, which could be a good wardrobe staple tomorrow. Soeur points to comfort and those lace and embroidery that we also see in Twinset and that bring to mind the delicious Elle Fanning at the 2023 Met Gala, dressed in Vivenne Westwood to pay tribute to Karl Lagerfeld, another lover of black and white .
In an ode to minimalism and Total White in a ready-to-wear key, the proposals of Elisabetta Franchi, Sandro, Forte Forte and Tods and as a tribute to tailoring, IKKS, Roberto Verino and Yerse. To mind, Timothée Chalamet’s Oscars and other red carpet outfits; Cailee Spaeny’s almost angelic looks; and Taylor Swift’s outfit when collecting her fourth Grammy for best album in the 2024 edition.
“From a Western point of view, white conveys purity and elegance, always being associated with virtues such as peace, decorum and solemnity. As with black, there is no single shade. The Eskimos, for example, in their daily lives distinguish more than 40 types of white, each one cataloged and registered with its own name with which to refer to them,” says journalist Eloy Valero, collaborator of the Fashion program in the channel 4TV.
“From haute couture we jump to the comfort that the street seeks. Once again, polo shirts and boyfriend shirts are positioned as the ideal choice for everyday wear, along with accessories that range from moccasins to mules and leather bags with rhinestone, feather or rattan details. The best thing about white is that it is precisely a canvas and this spring it comes in all its shades practically pristine unless you add that brushstroke whose sole objective is to elevate the outfit to a work of art, be it day or night,” highlights Joy Clemens, Styling teacher at Central Saint Martins.
White has always been one of the favorite colors for interior designers given its timelessness and its ability to adapt to any space. It provides light and is very functional when designing spaces with many elements, such as the kitchen or children’s room. This spring we see it in a lot of cushions and in blankets for sofas and poufs. But one tone stands out above the others, ivory, with those minimalist gray streamers.
“We see it in indoor and outdoor furniture, such as the Plec tables, whose base looks like an accordion or the pages of the book you are reading,” tells us interior designer Yolanda Aranda, head of the Aranda Santos agency. In this line, the Hay brand continues to be the standard bearer of the most timeless Scandinavian furniture, which is joined this season by the exclusive Siboney candles, manufactured in the south of France.
“Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them,” said Marc Jacobs, a great friend of Galliano. With white one lives until eternity.
