It's A Great Time To Be An Uptown Girl!

The Fall 2023 fashion collections are here and the designers are feeling nostalgic...for the most part.

Dream girls! Left: The Row. Right: Prada

All I can say about the fall 2023 collections that showed this past Feb-March in New York, London, Milan and Paris (and just wrapped on Tuesday) is: It’s a good time to be an uptown girl! Designers seem smitten this season with the historical idea of the woman who intentionally puts herself together. A woman who lunches. A woman who was trained by her mother to never leave home without putting on her face. A woman who will cooly and calmly not accept your no as a final answer. The designers are pleading: please please please just get dressed again! 

This week we’re delving into a new-age trend report. Less “trend” but more thoughts and pullouts of the ideas I think are worth considering for next season as you thoughtfully build your wardrobe.

I wouldn’t say there was one overarching thematic era of the collections, just this dream of a woman who is spending on and taking seriously the act of getting dressed. And outfits that feel “finished.”

There were nods to 1950s pret-a-porter shapes at Prada and Bottega Veneta and 80s opulence at Schiaparelli, power pumps and power shoulders at Saint Laurent.

Leather gloves and sensible kitten heels at The Row and floral sets at Balenciaga and Miu Miu. 

Balenciaga’s knife pleated floral blouse and skirt

I wonder too, if it was a depressingly nostalgic reach by designers for the pre-designer-accessories era. A time when the people who could afford designer goods invested in clothing. When shoes and bags merely acted as functional, best supporting actors. It can seem now, especially at the major design houses, that the shows are merely a vessel for selling shoes and bags. No matter if the clothes shown on the runway aren’t produced, it's just an expensive vessel to produce marketing images for the next six months. Are designers sick of this treatment of their work!?

Maybe I’m thinking about this because 1. I am an uptown girl, both at heart and geotag. So the full skirts, preppy coats, leather gloves and twinsets speak to me.

And 2. Because this past season in Paris I made my first ever retail Chanel purchase of RTW. Sure, I’ve bought shoes in-store, and jackets second-hand. But this was the first time I walked away from Rue Cambon with clothing in hand. It was exciting, and then terrifying, am I insane!? But then, I got a perverse sense of specialness, like I wasn’t just a Chanel sheep but a Chanel woman. So much more to unpack there, but I’m deeply feeling the idea of CLOTHING AS ACTION ITEM.

Trends were off the deep end for a minute (aka the post-pandemic-partywear craze). And before that we shunned trends all together for sweats. This season felt kind of like a reset to embrace elegant workhorses. Not that things were basic! Just that the fantasy presented on the runway now seems to to be the idea that the clothes really could be ours! Rachel Tashjian wrote an amazing piece about this for Harper’s Bazaar. There was so much fashion this season that made me feel like I could be my most empowered self: the immaculate long line and full skirts at Prada, the oversized leather jackets at Saint Laurent, cool-girl tailoring from Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta and MK&A’s The Row, classic ladylike tropes like matching sets from Balenciaga and Miu Miu, and (faux) fur trim at Tory Burch. All things that feel much more sophisticated than my regular garb, but still ideas I want to experiment with.

Left: Miu Miu’s matching set. Right: Faux-fur trim on winter white at Tory Burch

Left: My dream suit from Bottega Veneta. The boxy double layer jacket. The crisp yet flowy pants that don’t drag. So easy. So complete. Right: Saint Laurent’s leather pilot jacket which I’d imagine already has a waitlist.

But even if the designers are feeling nostalgic, why are we? By leaning into the nostalgia, are we fetishizing a time that we perceive to be simpler?

I think it partially has to do with how confusing getting dressed is now and the sheer decision fatigue that rules our lives. Our grandmothers had dress codes, whether they liked it or not. The state of the world and the state of our schedules has us feeling out of control. The uniform feeling of a tidy white shirt, feminine full skirt or military-grade Scottish wool overcoat brings a preciseness to our closets (and by extension, routines). By committing to these fashions, we are creating space for the joy these pieces bring and the confidence these shapes suggest, potentially making the getting dressed process a no brainer without resorting to flavorless capsule wardrobes.

Below: five themes that really resonated and the pieces that we will be on the hunt for from now until next November.

BCE - Before the Comfort Era

We still tend to take women who manage to “pull it all together” more seriously. 

***We should be holding men to the same standards. Eh hem FTX…but that’s for another time and another place. Thank you Jessica Grose!

I briefly mentioned this in my sexy boots post a few weeks ago, but there is something to be said for rejecting total coziness. It can give you a sense of internal power that translates into external confidence to get what's yours. And we deserve what’s ours. To me, seeing clothes like these give me a sense of serenity and control and aren’t even necessarily “uncomfortable” just very clearly not without thought.

Left: Prada. Right: Tory Burch

Christian Dior’s skirt suits, gloves and non-descript bags. Would love to be her!

Left: Miu Miu’s knit set. Right: Balmain’s take on the Dior “New Look”

Cheeky nods to 80s ladies. Left: Sandy Liang’s bow print puffer and skirt. Middle: Chanel’s flower+bow pumps. Right: Schiaparelli’s gilded “sportswear”

One Great Coat

In the winter, it’s your most important piece. Sometimes, the only thing people see. Is there really anything else you need? Designers are investing big time, in styles that look like we will love them MUCH longer than one season.

Left: Prada duffle coat. Right: Alaia’s dramatic lapel, swoon!

Ferragamo’s perfect prep. Right: The Row’s Scottish wool tailored number.

Loewe’s crystalized double breasted. I don’t even want to know what this will cost! Just kidding, I’m dying to know.

Meeting Us Where We Are

Some collections showed us how to be our harried selves, but the fantasy version. It’s fun, don’t shoot the messenger! And there are definitely beautiful pieces to pull out of this, even if just for inspiration…I have a feeling 5 Things will be recreating that Miu Miu look (for less) come September. :)

Ferragamo’s cropped hoodie paired back to a full skirt and pumps. Right: Models at Courreges walked while texting.

Left: A grey hoodie never looked more put together at Miu Miu. Right: Loewe’s long line knits create a sophisticated (yet cozy) shape.

Big Leather Energy

Either pilot brown and oversized, or that perfect 80s sage-y tan, you should start looking for your vintage leather now…or just buy one new come September and do the work of making it vintage yourself. All the cool girls in Paris were wearing this already…time for us to get hunting stateside.

Left: Commission. Right: Saint Laurent

Left: The Row. Right: Hermes

Barely A Sneaker In Sight

Both at the shows and in the shows, “real shoes” are back baby. I know its hard to hear. I too, live fully in the ‘give me sneakers or give me death’ cult. But it’s time. I honestly think it might be the answer to help us slow down and declutter our schedules, because I physically cannot get as much done in a cute boot as I can in a sneaker. Its just impossible to put in the steps the same way. Even if it’s flat, or the reincarnation of a sock. It just doesn’t have the same support structure, you know? So maybe it’s our subconscious way of telling ourselves to cherry pick our priorities. Maybe?????

Some elegant street style from the shows.

Some shoe observations:

The pump I bought for the trip and was so glad I did. The heel is interesting so make its look taller than it is. So comfy. And I will wear her for a long long time. She seemed just a little more special and intentional to me than a “classic pump”. Though I love a classic pump, to be sure.

The alllllll day walk everywhere even during a national transportation shut down/strike boot. I actually have a pair by M.Gemi but they are not on the site because of the spring season…though they bring back every year and I’ll show you them next fall. In the meantime, this Vince pair is super similar and priced to wear to death.

The boots that literally everyone was wearing in Paris….the comfort to style ratio seems perfect.

Hope that was a fun peek into the future. Next week we will be back to living in the fashion present.

Yours TRULY,

Becky

**Editor’s note: Yes, I know that the Row was technically a resort show. But they showed during fall collections, so including it here! For all those die hards out there. :)