Hemlines are down, necklines up – and there are complicated politics behind fashion’s embrace of a looser silhouette
• Read more from the autumn/winter 2017 edition of The Fashion, our biannual fashion supplement
Do you prefer midiskirts that cover your knees to minis these days? When you wear a slip dress, do you sometimes layer a polo neck underneath it? On a lunchtime browse, do you find yourself drawn to a voluminous sleeve? If you are reading this, then the answer is probably yes. The look of 2017 is notably more demure than that of a decade ago. Hemlines have dipped a crucial few inches, from just above the knee to just below it. A collar up to your chin is the norm. Party dresses have sweeping sleeves, rather than plunging necklines. Or, to put it another way: for the simple reason that you are engaged with fashion, you have become a modest dresser.
When Victoria Beckham launched her fashion house a decade ago, her style had already left the Wag days behind. Cleavage and Daisy Dukes had been replaced by neat knee-length dresses whose necklines exposed only the clavicles. Since then her wardrobe – one of the most photographed and most influential in the world – has evolved further. Her clothes are now loose and fluid, concealing the shape as well as the surface of the body.
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