Sick of Sweats, Fashion Designers Go Big on Sparkle for Fall
This spring, runways from seemingly every label were filled with golds, metallics, crystals, and sequins. It wasn’t a coincidence.
Photo Illustration: Hannah Whitaker for Bloomberg Businessweek; Photographs: Courtesy companies
When Michael Kors presented his fall looks in April, the world was in the midst of a rising wave of Covid-19, with 670,000 new cases recorded every 24 hours. Not that you’d have guessed it from the clothes. To celebrate Kors’s 40 years in business, Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen, and other supermodels strutted in coats and dresses that sparkled with reflective materials. Even the grays glistened.
He wasn’t alone. Almost every major fashion designer responded to the pandemic the same way: lots and lots and lots of shine. The optimistic collections anticipated a clientele that, by September, would be in a collective mood for celebration.