Traditional Tailoring Is Back For AW24 But With An Unabashedly Feminine Twist
Former fashion editor Julie Pelipas is the poster girl for polished tailoring. But it wasn’t always this way. ‘I remember the pivotal moment in my personal style was when I switched from the mode of following trends into this particular, very honest decision to wear the clothes that fully reflected who I am,’ she recalls. ‘I was attending shows to do my job, not to be photographed for street style blogs. I was there to do reporting, to go to meetings, to visit the showrooms. That tailored look was my go-to on the days when I was working really hard.’
Pelipas went on to leave her magazine role and start her own sustainable label, Bettter, which launched in in 2020. Its collections are made of upcycled dead-stock fabrics from men’s tailoring. She describes the work she does as more technical than creative. ‘It is all about the architecture of the suit, rather than a fantasy of mine,’ she says. ‘It’s power dressing: a particular look that brings you comfort and confidence.’
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Hers isn’t the only brand placing workwear at the fore. For the past few seasons, ‘corpcore’ has been been gaining steam throughout the fashion world: the autumn/winter 2024 season, in particular, was awash with looks that, given a styling tweak or two, could stride straight off the catwalk and onto the streets of Canary Wharf.
At Prada, double-breasted wool-herringbone skirt-suits were paired with colour-pop turtlenecks and pointed kitten heels. At Saint Laurent, the trend took a more sultry turn, with models wearing nothing beneath their oversize, masculine-inspired suit jackets. At Schiaparelli, creative director Daniel Roseberry gave a 1980s-style silhouette a cheeky, surrealist spin, pairing power suits with plaited hair in place of a tie, while at Michael Kors, hourglass shapes dominated: blazers were cinched in at the waist with buckle belts and teamed with knee-length tailored shorts.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising, given the backdrop of ever-growing corporate influence in today’s world – a hot talking point, especially in the context of this year’s flurry of global elections. Companies such as Amazon and Microsoft boast annual revenues that are larger than the GDP of a small country, while rampant mergers and acquisitions across sectors are consolidating power in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations. Even the creative industries are not immune. Within fashion circles in particular, there is much chatter about how a increasing number of brands, beholden to shareholders, are deprioritising imagination in pursuit of profit.
But it also speaks to a wider cultural shift. After years of normcore creeping its way into office spaces, dressing up for work is aspirational again. Make no mistake: women aren’t ‘dressing like men’ to get ahead – they’re owning their power through their fashion choices.
‘Hardworking workwear,’ as Net-a-Porter’s buying director Kate Benson terms it, is thriving. Demand among Net-a-Porter’s customers has only continued to rise, hitting a new peak this year with the site’s ‘wardrobe staples’ workwear curation rising to become its most-visited edit. Over the summer months, when city heatwaves and vacation dressing are dominating shopping baskets, sharp tailoring was still selling: searches for oversize black blazers doubled in June compared with the month prior, while tailored black trousers are another highly sought-after item, said Benson.
‘It’s a counter to what was happening during the pandemic, when everybody was dressing down,’ said Elizabeth Giardina, creative director of the sustainable brand Another Tomorrow, which is a top seller for workwear at Net-a-Porter alongside labels such as The Row and Toteme. ‘Now, there’s a real desire to be dressed up and look polished. I really think women want to feel powerful right now.’
Pelipas agrees that the rise of officecore is, in part, a reaction to the surreal events of the past few years – an antidote of sorts to the extremes of sweatpants all day every day during lockdowns, followed by an intense stint of party dressing in the aftermath. But she believes a bigger driving force could be the broader context of the ever-evolving roles of women in society.
Of course, gender inequality is still a huge problem in the workplace – there’s still a long way to go before women are adequately represented and fairly recompensed across the business, political and creative spheres. This is especially true for women of colour, for whom the inequality gap is even bigger.
Yet it’s also the case that we are experiencing a moment when women are more visible in positions of power than ever. Last year, the share of female CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies hit an all-time high. (Women still make up an alarmingly small percentage of these leaders – 10.6%,to be exact – but it’s more than double the figure 10 years ago.) In British government, Keir Starmer’s new Labour cabinet has a record number of female ministers. In the United States, Kamala Harris made history in 2020 when she became the country’s first woman vice president – now, she’s running for the Oval Office.
Considering the current threats to women’s rights – from the anti-abortion movement in the US to the lack of access to proper maternity and post-natal care in the UK – it’s also a time when women need to assert their power. ‘It feels like this is a moment for women to really stand up, to truly show their strength,’ says Giardina. ‘Fashion is a way to do that.’
There’s something to be said, too, for the rise of labels by women, for women. With a female-founded and designed brand, there is both in-built empathy for women’s experiences and a unique understanding of what customers want to get out of their clothes. This is particularly relevant for a category such as workwear, which needs to deliver on function as much as it does on aesthetics.
At Another Tomorrow, which was launched in 2020 by Vanessa Barboni Hallik, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, suiting is the bestselling category, driving about one third of total sales over the past year.
Daisy Knatchbull opened her namesake store Knatchbull (formerly The Deck) as Savile Row’s first shopfront creating made-to-measure tailoring exclusively for women. Her bespoke business is booming: since launching in 2019, the brand (which counts Lauren Hutton and Gillian Anderson among its fanbase) has more than doubled its sales each year without spending anything on marketing – an achievement not to be sniffed at, considering the overall decline of the historic street. Last year, Knatchbull added a ready-to-wear line to the mix, introducing staples including silk blouses, cashmere jumpers and trench coats alongside the tailored pieces.
Knatchbull’s 2,500-strong client base is notably wide-ranging – ‘it may be a corporate woman who’s C-suite, or someone who has just started their job in banking, or a woman who simply wants to look amazing for her daughter’s wedding or her 60th birthday,’ she says – but the collective desire uniting them all is wanting to feel good about themselves: to feel elegant, effortless and confident.
‘I like to call it modern armour. It’s that feeling of, “I’m invincible because I’ve got this on.” It’s projecting who I want to be,’ says Knatchbull. ‘A lot of [women] in the past felt they had to dress in a way that would be acceptable to men. Wearing a trouser suit was a bit out-there – it was more pencil skirts and modest shirts. I think women are now seeing it as, “I don’t need to do that for anyone. I’m going to wear what I want.”’
This new wave of corpcore dressing isn’t just for work. Brands and buyers are increasingly aware of women investing in pieces they can wear for multiple occasions, not just the 9-to-5.
The contemporary take also brings a fresh attitude that feels more modern: less about fitting in with the boys, and more focused on amplifying and owning one’s power. It mirrors a broader change in the way we talk about the realities of being a working woman today. ‘I’m seeing a softness to the language of women’s lives right now – and how multifaceted they are – that wasn’t there before,’ observes Another Tomorrow’s Giardina. ‘Back then, it was: you have to show up at work the way men show up at work. Now, the conversation is more, “No, show up as women, be vulnerable.”’
This nuance is reflected in the new silhouettes we’re seeing on the runway. For AW24, designers did not shy away from femininity, which was present in everything from the clothes themselves to the merchandising and styling of collections.
‘[It] marks a departure from the oversize, masculine-led shapes of recent seasons,’ Net-a-Porter’s Benson says. ‘Hourglass and collarless jackets, mini-dresses and full skirts signal a return to a style that embraces femininity.’
For Pelipas, it’s the versatility of tailoring that makes it so appealing. ‘On top, you can add a hidden sexiness, a charisma,’ she says. ‘I think this is the era, these are the years, where we finally realise the potential of suits.’
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