The plissé has conquered SS 2014 catwalks: taking over just every style and form – geometric shapes, a sporty flair, romantic and metal shades – the trend seems to live one of its golden times. As with almost any other fashion trend, the interest in pleated fabrics has a quite long history. Looking as far back as to old Egyptians and ancient Greeks, one can find interesting images portraying long wrap skirts and tunics. At the beginning of the 90s, Issey Miyake, the Japanese designer most known for his perpetual use of plissé, took inspiration from Mariano Fortuny, the inventor of the legendary Delphos robe, in turn a representation of the charioteer of Delphi.
Nearly two decades later, this year we have enjoyed quite a lot of plissé on the catwalks: we admired the sculptured and refined pleated details such as the decorative frills on the clothing of Dries Van Noten; sporty and preppy lines created by Ports 1961; and, again, shimmering yet minimal choices of Proenza Schouler. For Dior, Raf Simons, keeps digging deep into the Maison’s roots, offering a contemporary interpretation of the New Look collection by making clothes shorter with an added modern twist.
Bringing back the plissé, a technique that requires hours of patience and high ability in craftsmanship, can be understood as a call for bringing the quality back in fashion. Playing with something so hard to obtain, is a sort of a demonstration that deep knowledge and skill should always prevail over colossal industries and low quality.
