It has always been fascinating to see how forward-looking designers mine early cultures, textures, and materials and make them look current.
Everything we do or experience is constantly changing while at the same time we are somewhat locked in cyclical comebacks. Undoubtedly, fashion and history march together, celebrating a repetition of one another by creating the fusion of past and future anew. In fashion, the future reinvents the past and the past influences the future. This is how fashion works: the new revamp the old but with a much stronger modern twist.
Let’s have another look at the references of the past that we observe nowadays.
(See also part 1, part 2 and part 3 on this topic.)
The latest fashion weeks’ runway collections for Spring/Summer 2022 were inundated with animal prints across all four cities, rendered both realistically and abstractly. Yes, AGAIN, fashion’s longstanding love affair with animal prints was apparent.
Collections spring summer 2022:
Roberto Cavalli Spring 2022 RTW © Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com
Salvatore Ferragamo Spring 2022 RTW collection © Alessandro Lucioni / Gorunway.com
Jil Sander Spring 2022 RTW collection © Alessandro Lucioni / Gorunway.com
Vetements Spring 2022 Menswear collection © Gio Staiano / Vetements
Proenza Schouler Spring 2022 RTW collection © Jonas Gustavsson / Proenza Schouler
It’s a widespread belief that animal prints channel power to the wearer. As early as the eighteenth century, fashionable dresses were made from fabrics with prints and colours mimicking the skins of animals. It was all about wild cats – leopard and cheetah in past decades, especially during Dior’s reign. Nowadays, we can see that zebra and snakeskin have been added. Today’s style of animal print is well-rounded. But as it always happens in fashion, inspiration comes from all the previous decades, and that’s why animal print is classy yet attractive.
Leopard prints 1920s / Design by Christian Dior, 1953 © Hulton
Marc Bohan for Christian Dior 1947 © Hulton / Rudi Gernreich, 1966 © Rob Deslongchamps, Cincinnati Art Museum
Those prints symbolize so much from sleek and poised to mysterious and vicious – elements that many female icons throughout history have used to express their personalities. They enhance the diva persona of the celebrities who are known for wearing the garments.
Gene Tierney, 1940s © Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
Brigitte Bardot, 1958 © Bettmann
Jennifer Lopez in Michael Kors at the 2013 Met Gala © Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for The Huffington Post
Grace Jones, 1978 © Bart Hess
The garments in animal prints represent the excitement, adventure, and independence of spirit, especially unusual for depictions of women during earlier times.
Elizabeth Taylor, 1960s © SSPL/Getty Images / Ava Gardner, 1960s © Virgil Apger/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images
Zsa Zsa Gabor, 1960s © REX Shutterstock
Azzedine Alaia, 1991
Veruschka, late 1960s © Pictorial Parade/Getty Images
Since animal pelts and prints were quite fit to represent the free-spirited independence and keen interest in world cultures in the 1970s and 1980s, they became very popular for dresses, leggings, and accessories. Animal motifs were perfectly suitable to the combination of extravagance, bold shapes, and bright colors of that period. Dominico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have made animal prints the signature of their brand.
Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2022 Menswear collection © Alessandro Lucioni / Gorunway.com
Animal prints are a constant fixture in fashion, no matter the year or the season. It’s usually a matter of pinpointing what specific fauna-inspired graphic designers gravitate to in a particular period of time.
We think that past fashion will always be meaningful, relative, and vital to contemporary designers. Quite a few fashion inventions are timeless and still appeal to many people today.
To be continued…