The Chic of ’90s Belgian Tailoring Is Back—And in a Big Way

The idea of a day dress doesn’t—and has never—existed in my wardrobe. Oh, but they’re so easy, everyone says: Slip it on, and off you go! But what shoes? Tights, or bare-legged? What underwear—and then what on earth goes over the top? A cardigan seems trite. A jacket? Sure, but what kind of jacket? Once you’ve overcome those challenges, you have to adhere to some basic behavioral codes, like how to sit upright, with legs crossed. (You certainly can’t sit slouched in a chair or with your legs remotely apart.) Frankly, it’s a minefield—and one that, yes, even as a Vogue editor, I’ve never had the patience nor the desire to navigate.

Tailoring, on the other hand, makes a whole lot of sense: A two-piece solution that works for anything, anywhere, in any season, where the only decision required is whether to wear it with a white T-shirt or a white shirt (or, perhaps, with nothing at all). I’ve always loved an oversized shape with roomy, mannish pleat-front trousers that sit low on the waist and pool a little—the hems scrunching up over chunky flat boots while also long enough to accommodate a heel—and I lean toward a shoulder line so broad that it announces your arrival into a room a good while before the rest of yourself slips in.

Happily, we’ve been seeing a big tailoring resurgence lately, particularly of the edgy and mostly monochrome kind favored by influential avant-garde Belgian designers of the ’90s. Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela, among others, did things their way, disrupting beauty ideals while redefining both what luxury fashion meant and what it looked like. At a time when fashion was fixated on slim, Margiela disturbed proportions to all-out gigantic. Margiela’s collections were always imbued with a crafty, playful, DIY spirit: He turned clothes inside out; he cleverly deconstructed only to reassemble again, making jackets from pattern paper and layered looks literally held together by dressmaking pins. (I bought my first Margiela blazer on eBay with my first paycheck from working as a Saturday sales assistant at Harvey Nichols in London. My local dry cleaner lost it a few years later, and I still scroll through resale sites in the hope of finding it.)

More basically, there was something terrifically relatable about Demeulemeester’s and Margiela’s collections—something probably aided by who they chose to walk their shows: Both were among the first to cast from the street and to use older models. Their designs never felt prescriptive; they always seemed imbued with an essence of adaptability that empowered the wearer to decide how she might put them together. Demeulemeester’s white shirts fell just so from a shoulder, suspended by a strap, with ties and tendrils to inflate or deflate, while flattering bias cuts encouraged movement and worked on all body types. Demeulemeester often tried on every piece she designed herself—especially her androgynous, several-sizes-up tailoring—until she found that perfect degree of slouch. (Her starting point: a child dressed in their grandfather’s clothes.)

The spring ’23 collections were awash with references: See Gigi Hadid walking for Victoria Beckham in that great suit, deconstructed at the back; moody, mannish tailoring at Burberry; a series of inky all-black looks at Dries Van Noten; minimal but gargantuan double-breasted blazers and breezy white shirts at Stella McCartney. Even Valentino, it seems, got the bigger-is-better shoulder memo.

But we’ve seen big shoulders and boxy tailoring for a few years now, you cry, and you’d be right—but this time around it feels softer, more romantic. Even more conceptual pieces were threaded with tenderness; sometimes a hint of a waist came back into focus. After a few years in which we seem to have been looking for an element of protection from our wardrobes, this season’s approach feels more optimistic.