estroy to rebuild? Yes, this too can happen in fashion, as the Japanese designers did back in the ’80s: a new approach, initially shocking but subsequently not only accepted but happily incorporated into Western fashion. It is the poetic of imperfection, which in the Japanese traditional aesthetic, is considered as being living, present, transformative, and can be infinitely experimented on and built on. Perhaps that is why deconstruction is so popular on the runways just now, used and abused by designers who do not normally dip into the genre; it allows them to make a clean slate of any garment and reinvent it, to do what they like with it, perhaps even when imagination or creativity is in short supply. At a time when fashion is dipping into past decades and not coming up with anything revolutionary, deconstruction has become a way of giving the impression of new creativity, for an infinite number of brand new shapes and silhouettes. Some more successful than others. was everywhere in these fragile shows, mirroring the uncertainty of our tragic times, transforming one garment into another, stripping down a jacket, paring back trousers, cutting and sewing or just slashing and leaving raw-cut hems, rough fabrics, holes like portholes over the skin, the body exposed as never before. also likes a bared body but certainly does not follow any poetic other than a desire for fun. Her mini-dresses, micro-skirts and bras/tops are simply suited to the occasion – short hemlines that allow freedom of movement, straps slipping off the shoulders, veiled or reveal-all details. But isn’t all this pondering about women’s skin just a sign that the debate surrounding women’s bodies is as hot as ever? explores an hot and controversial topic: the relationship between women and power. The designers interpreted the theme according to their own mood, whether militarised yet sweet, antique and contemporary, jaunty or sensual.
