Oversize tailoring will remain in style for spring 2024. Big, boxy silhouettes have been popular for several seasons now, and merchants were pleased to see the trend back on the runway.
In WWD’s buyers report from Paris, Bergdorf Goodman fashion director Linda Fargo said a boxy jacket will be an important starting point for customers to try out more risqué trends like Bermuda shorts and what she called the “undie-pant,” seen at Dries Van Noten and Alessandra Rich among others.
At Carven, new designer Louise Trotter styled her car coats, trenches and double-breasted blazers with sheer skirts. Trotter said she wanted to offer clothes to inspire confidence for a woman on the go, cutting them all, “a shade oversize for a well-proportioned sense of ease,” wrote WWD general assignment editor Lily Templeton.
Gabriela Hearst was similarly inspired by female empowerment for her final outting at Chloé, sculpting rounded, wing-like shoulders on linen and leather jackets as an homage to the Greek “Nike of Samothrace” statue at the Louvre. Hearst told West Coast executive editor Booth More she was sending a message that the Chloé woman is ready to fly, even after she leaves the French house at the end of the year.
Rounded shoulders were also spotted at Issey Miyake and Dior, where creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri cinched the waist of her Boyfriend jackets with belts to mimic the house’s bar silhouette. And at Givenchy, Matthew Williams went lighter on hardware and tough-glamour with pretty cocoon coats in mauve and pale yellow.
Other designers hinged their outerwear on a squarer proportion. After restraining himself last fall in the midst of Balenciaga‘s advertising controversy, Demna went back to the mammoth coats and blazers with jutting linebacker shoulders and extended sleeves. These were ”pure, concentrated, unplugged Demna,” observed international editor Miles Socha.
Elsewhere, shoulder structures were reduced at Undercover and AZ Factory, which both used gauzy or silken fabrics for pajama-like interpretations on loose tailoring. So did the Olsen twins at The Row, pairing elongated jackets with drapey trousers and jelly flats. “When fashion people talk about uniform dressing, this was it,” Moore wrote.