Fashion Runway Dresses
Fashion runway dresses showcase the designers artistic exploration of a trend. Their revelations trickle down into the ready to wear line where they will eventually be adapted into practical, wearable clothing.
But what is it about these weird dresses that are shown on the runway that make them so strange?
1. Theatrical Silhouettes
Since ancient Greek theater, costumers have elevated drama’s spectacle by obscuring the actors’ specific identities. In the era of Jacobian plays, elaborate costuming and staging techniques accomplished this feat by covering the performers in voluminous robes and masks. Today, stage lighting and screens do the trick.
The result is a dazzling show, even if the complainer was right about one thing: It’s not a “real musical.” It feels like an improbable experiment, with its a cappella sci-fi musical thought experiments about people’s moral obligations to aliens and gender-fluid strangers. But it’s an experiment worth seeing. The 12 members of the Silhouettes have impressive technical skills, and Nichols and Troutt, as Miranda and Aurelia, are a force to be reckoned with. Their climactic scene together in act two is one of the musical’s most powerful moments.
2. Mini Dresses
The mini dress has become a wardrobe staple thanks to its easy style and wearability. You can pair it with sneakers for a casual look or heels to dress it up for a night out. It’s available in a wide range of colors and patterns, so you can find one that suits your personal style.
Fashion icon Mary Quant put these thigh-skimming hemlines on the map during the swinging ’60s. The trend came back with a vengeance in the noughties, resulting in everything from Cecilie Bahsen’s baby doll dresses to Faithfull The Brand’s milkmaid styles.
Mini dresses are typically made of cotton, polyester, knits, rayon or a mix of fabrics. You can also get them in silk, satin or lace for more formal occasions.
3. Asymmetrical Silhouettes
In fashion, asymmetrical silhouettes are characterized by asymmetrical elements in sleeves, necklines, hemlines, layers, gathers and wraps as well as in prints and patterns. Other elements that create asymmetry in dresses are slits, thigh slits, blouson and bubble skirts.
Celebrities and models like Kate Winslet, Rihanna, and Drew Barrymore have opted for designer asymmetrical neckline dresses on the red carpet. This new trend is pretty cool and can light up the day-to-day style of any woman.
Hussein Chalayan’s runway show was one of the most unique and inventive ones ever staged. The show took place at Gatliff Warehouse, a disused bus depot in Victoria and starred model Shalom Harlow wearing a strapless broderie anglaise dress cinched across the bust. She was then sprayed with black and yellow paint by robots.
4. Exaggerated Silhouettes
A dress that has a poufy ruffle, flouncy frills or large sculptural sleeves is known as three dimensional silhouette (pronounced: tri-men-shuh-nuhl si-loo-eet). These dresses were often worn by royalty and were popular in ancient Egypt and the renaissance. In modern times, this type of silhouette is used in fashion runway shows, red carpet dresses and tops.
Designers sometimes use exaggerated silhouettes in their shows to display ideas for future collections. This is how Christopher Kane’s lion-head peplum and Connor Ives’ drop-waisted XXL puffball skirts found their way onto the runway for FW23. Viktor & Rolf also turned the catwalk upside down, literally, with a gown that descended from above the model’s head. That’s not a look to try at home.
5. Sculptural Silhouettes
For the last look in their Paris Haute-Couture Week 2023 show, Dutch avant-garde conceptual fashion designers Viktor & Rolf turned silhouettes upside-down. Guests in the audience were surprised when models wearing floor-length gowns with stiff tulle skirts and sequinned bodices walked down the runway with the dresses detached from their torsos.
Contemporary silhouette artist Kristi Malakoff has received acclaim for her life-like paper sculptures that are displayed as an installation. Her work brings a third dimension to silhouette art by making it interactive for viewers.
Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garcons designer, uses silhouettes as a metaphor for women’s bodies in her collections. She is known for her panoramic silhouettes that depict different historical narratives, such as slavery, violence, sexuality, and psychological trauma. Her pieces are both figurative and abstract, giving audiences the freedom to interpret and decide what they mean to them.
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