THE WAY WE WORE

Have you heard the legend of the origin of pleated skirts? It goes like this: a woman, wanting to find a unique skirt, searched the landscape for inspiration. A flower with many folds gave rise to a beautifully crafted, pleated creation that was worn by women far and wide. This isn’t the stuff of fashion fairytale but an important story in the 5,000-year-old history of Miao dress, the technicoloured clothing worn by the Chinese ethnic minority, which includes lavishly embroidered cloth, regal silver headpieces and carefully pleated skirts, and how it wound up as the unlikely inspiration for Marni’s newest collaboration.

The Italian house’s creative director Francesco Risso, who has just released the collection, citing disillusionment with fast consumption in fashion and lack of purpose, isn’t the only one turning away from now to look back. Designers, concerned with the fate of diminishing artisan numbers and local manufacturing in a throwaway culture, have highlighted the skills of some of the world’s oldest makers. Simone Rocha engaged Aran knitters of the tiny windswept