There is a period in our lives, usually adolescence, where we undergo an identity crisis to find ourselves. In psychology, a subset of the crisis is an ‘identity moratorium’ – a key step in the process of finding a sense of self. During an identity moratorium, we explore and experiment with many different options. We could try out different religions, political affiliation, or if of mixed heritage, try on different cultural or racial identities. Psychologists believe that an individual must go through a moratorium before he or she can form a true sense of identity (a state called identity achievement). If you were to look at a photo album of me through my teens and early twenties, you might think ‘who is this person?’. Is she an Around The Way Girl, a Research Assistant in perpetual Lululemon, or another budding journalist trying to channel Joan Didion? Watching the Christian Siriano collection felt a bit like that.
There is clearly something Siriano excels at: red-carpet gowns. And he does them his own way, not like Giambattista Valli or Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino, but in a much more uptown-glamour Manhattanite way. His brand of glamour was fused with cinematic inspiration from DC superhero movie Birds of Prey and wacky comic-book antagonist Harley Quinn, the Fall 2020 collection had a whimsical, offbeat undertone.
Of course, a RTW collection can’t all be evening, but some judicious editing would have worked wonders, because there were some spectacular pieces that seemed crowded by noise. There were so many fun, strong looks in the second half of the show, that it seemed curious why the designer included ill-fitting tailoring in slime green, a soulless slip, and pieces with random feather trims. Sometimes, adding a bit of frou doesn’t make it fashion. Mainly, it’s hard to consolidate the woman that wears the above to a gala, and the below to drinks.
The concept of editing—knowing what to leave out—goes for anyone trying to create a brand. Dressing every woman for every occasion may very well precisely be Siriano’s brand, but, as acclaimed author Jonathan Safran Foer once said, “try to appeal to everyone, and you appeal to no one deeply”. He was talking about literature, but this can be said of fashion, and of people.
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