Edwardian styles have been creeping back into couture.
Givenchy Edwardian
The whole purpose of the Edwardian silhouette with it’s s-bend corset, white shoulders, ‘stuffed’-like bosom, hip-hugging skirt, and flared hem, was to personify the elegance of the exaggerated female form: Small waist, curving hips, delicate, subtle yet substantial, and a generous, matriarchial busom. It was smooth, lacey, art nouveau, like abstract arabesques and ascanthus curves.
What is that [on the left]?! Ridiculous in Ivory!? This is not Edwardian. This is insane, like storm troppers pretending they are on a picnic out of attrition caused delirium. What that has to do with the Edwardian period, I just don’t know.
There is no poured-in fit, no pronounced curves, no grace. She looks like she is in a straight jacket, possibly in pain. The bolstered shoulders are made no more feminine with chiffon. The hair does nothing to balance the look out, only exaggerating her sticky legs and arms. The skirt looks stretched and pinned on contrasting with the verticality of the arms, legs and hair, not liquidy and flowing to complement curves and lengthen the line. Miniskirts are never complimentary unless you need some instant hips – and there are lots of easier ways to get those – for they do the worst: cut the line in half, shorten the legs. When mixed with an Edwardian top, she looks like a mummy princess trying to make her way into a career in a lame attempt for world domination.
Amazingly enough reviewers have praised Fall 2009 designers for their optimism. I’m hoping this is another one of their insert-random-stock-phrase-in-review-moments, or else one must conclude that their judgemental and interpretive abilities have been affected by Stockholm Symdrome. For if this is Givenchy’s interpretation of Edwardian updated, he then implies that the graceful woman of 2009 is uphappy, bound, miserable, and disjointed. Would you like to be one of those?
