To be Draped in Gold or Rooted in Reality???

Literally and politically, we are having a frigid January. Seasonal depression is an Ontario staple, but slushy salty grounds ruining your shoes and rage induced from your bag falling off your coat’s shoulder are no match for this year’s added symptoms of anxiety and doom brought to you by the losers who are subjecting us to their pathetic leadership. Feel free to take a deep breath and re-read that. I sit in my room and begrudgingly scroll through social media as I contemplate whether or not I should prioritize my mental health or stay informed. As I’ve said, I find power in being the smartest feminist in the room, however, the environment that has become of Instagram and TikTok are taking a toll on me. However, on yet another day during this long January, as I scroll through The Blonde Roast’s Instagram feed instead of my own, I am handed couture week. Couture week, on a little golden plate to remind me of the escapism that good art can provide. 

To end off January, Paris gives us Spring/Summer Couture week. Something I forgot about in the midst of my own winter hibernation where I’ve been filling up and staying warm with Didion, Babitz, Ngozi Adiche, and Hooks. But as I dug myself into my little feminist hole, I was momentarily brought down the rabbit hole by Couture’s best designers. 

“A good designer is part prophet, part historian, and part seducer.” What a perfectly sexy sentence. In couture, it is the designer’s role to use fashion’s past, reflect it in the present, and show us what could be in the future, all while doing it alluringly. How do they do it? This past week, the prophets of Schiaparelli, Dior, Valentino, and Gupta, did so using fantasy as the ultimate transvergence of time. 

Daniel Roseberry’s Schiaparelli show is taking the social media spotlight of the week. His show, dubbed “Icarus” was inspired by the Greek story of ambition, about a boy who flew with wax wings, too close to the sun. Daniel’s workroom might be the next closest thing to the sun, showing a collection dripping in gold, pearls, and ethereal draping. His use of texture he creates with draping and folding to emphasize small waists, protruding hip bones, and exposed collar bones, is done through the eyes of someone who sees the female body as art and sculpture instead of a base to adorn clothes off of. Roseberry, comparable to Martin Margiela, is much like a Classical artist in this way – having a perceptive appreciation for the female body. In a NY Times article by Vanessa Friedman on the Joy of Escapism, she quotes Daniel as saying about the show, “all I really want is to suspend the weight of reality.” 

And don’t we all Daniel! While Daniel is a very rich American in Paris, and I am a privileged white woman in Toronto, the weight of reality is felt by anyone with a slice of empathy right now. And to suspend that feeling in any way is an important task – but one that might not be so hard to do, as long as we let ourselves. In the face of political struggle where the leader’s of the world are not looking out for the good of women, queer people, immigrants, BIPOC communities, children, and so on, they want us to feel defeated and exhausted, and although we might, we must do things to energize and inspire ourselves to continue. There’s a quote by Winston Churchill, about his choice to not cut funding to the arts during the war, otherwise, what are we fighting for? 

So as I sit in my room, and feel and hear the sentiment from a lot of people my age about whether to prioritize mental health or continue to be informed and involved, I find the answer is to let myself take time to enjoy art. In all forms, whether it’s reading fiction instead of feminist manifestos sometimes or letting myself be consumed and mesmerized with couture week no matter how dystopian the height of fashion can seem. I also remind myself that being informed can come from more places than just Instagram and TikTok, despite the quickness and ease of access. I stay educated and informed through people, places, art, and writing first, and social media second. When I think of my idols, I feel quite confident in the fact that those women didn’t gain all their knowledge, power, and place in the world by knowing what was going on via social media, and I don’t think I have to either. 

- Gill