There was a moment during the Chloé Pre-Fall presentation when it felt like an errant and possibly entirely unstoppable tear might just slowly roll down my cheek. Okay, before you get the wrong idea, it was entirely due to one of creative director Clare Waight Keller’s coats. It was in autumnal rust wool, cut long and lean and waisted with a belt, the line extended by a high roll collar, and amplified by the chunky knit sleeves. It wasn’t so wildly different, save for those sleeves, from a coat my own mom had spent hours deliberating over buying in a boutique in Edinburgh way back in the last gasp of the 1970s; Waight Keller’s coat, just one of many outerwear options she showed, from an oversize denim jacket with a vaguely kimono shape to a cotton canvas and reverse shearling cagoule, was an immediate blast from the past, one fuzzy with a warm feeling of nostalgia. (You see: If you can also remember a nanosecond of your life like that in such intense detail and recall it with such emotion, chances are you’ll end up working in fashion, too.)
You could say that warm and nostalgic was the leitmotif of Waight Keller’s Pre-Fall, which was built on the notion of bundling you up in layers of deeply tactile textures, the fabrics worked into the type of oversize and non-sexualized volumes that spoke to the era of the newly liberated ’70s. There were blazers with wide curved lapels and patch pockets, fluid jersey dresses with button and loop fastenings, and romantic tiered lace blouses. Some looks were worn with low-heeled mid-calf boots in claret or black adorned with buttons and with an aged texture to the leather, which had a kind of charming, seen it all, done it all, borne out of the experience-of-life quality to them. Exactly the kind of quality that you might expect if you’d been wearing the boots to countless protest marches or . . . Broadway auditions. Waight Keller’s mood board, propped up in her studio, was an homage to the likes of Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep, and there was a distinctly Annie Hall/Kramer vs. Kramer vibe to her collection. In fact, Streep, during her Golden Globes lifetime achievement award acceptance speech, demonstrated she is still feisty and forthright, and that night, there really wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
