What are liberating clothes? It’s a question all fashion designers have had to address—even if they weren’t thinking about it head-on—at critical inflection points throughout history. Miniskirts, maxi skirts, and power suits were all responses to the forces of women’s consciousness and working roles in the 20th century, but what now, in this explosive era of Time’s Up and the rise of identity politics? That’s a lot of significance to load onto a Pre-Fall review, but Roland Mouret says he’s been reflecting on it. As a designer, “women’s experience is becoming the starting point of how you have to change,” he says. At the top of his mind is the question of “how clothes can trap or free you.”
Snagging Kota Eberhardt for his lookbook, with her dancer’s ability to bring clothes to life in movement, was a compelling projection of how Mouret is thinking. It’s a long stride from the power-mesh body-con dresses with which he made his name in the 2000s, that’s for sure. To start with, Eberhardt, who is appearing imminently in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, is a symbolic multidimensional figure, he says: “She is an actor, artist, writer. There was a time when people weren’t allowed to be more than one thing. That’s completely changed now, and it’s inspiring.”
Vanina Sorrenti’s photographs of Eberhardt leaping through the dynamics of the collection—the fluid asymmetric cuts, light but rich-looking fabrics, generous yet weightless volumes—speak for themselves. Down to the Greek sandals Mouret has made in a collaboration with Newbark, this is a see-now-buy-now collection that uses all his skills to, yes, liberate summer occasion dressing from the hampering rules of formality. Full marks for progress on that one.
