2022 fashion highlights
While 2022 brought new meaning to the term ‘unprecedented’, the fashion world reverberated with boundless creativity – and occasional controversy – to fill up our ‘new normal’.
Creativity, expression, progression and, above all, pure entertainment: fashion defied convention to do its job in 2022.
The haute couture spring/summer shows in Paris in January were a harbinger of trends and covetable items that would dominate the next 12 months. Celebrated Valentino designer Pierpaolo Piccioli showed a mould-breaking collection that redefined the exclusivity of haute couture, by inviting models of all different body types and ages to don the exclusive wares. Schiaparelli’s Texan designer, Daniel Roseberry, showed why the brand would be the most sought-after in the year to come, with sharp conical bras, giant hats and interplanetary motifs that would eventually be worn by the likes of Beyoncé, Zendaya and Doja Cat.
In February, at the autumn/winter ’22/’23 shows of New York and Europe Valentino again disrupted the status quo by showing an entire collection in its own shade of fluorescent pink – recognised by Pantone, no less – which would become a red-carpet favourite. The invasion of Ukraine, which began during fashion week, saw Balenciaga’s designer, Demna, who fled Georgia as a refugee when he was a boy, dedicate his collection to those displaced by the tragedy.
February’s Oscars were the year’s first red-carpet showing, and while Chris Rock and Will Smith’s on-stage altercation would go viral, the night was also marked by celebrities with stylish irreverence, including Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s billowing green gown by Jean Paul Gaultier and Belgian designer Glenn Martens. It cemented her as one of the best-dressed. At Vanity Fair’s after-party, British model Adwoa Aboah spotlighted Australian design in a sheer netted dress by Christopher Esber.
By May, celebrity fashion spectating was in full swing with The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Gala, where celebrities dressed to fit the “Gilded Glamour” theme. Among them, Kim Kardashian. who was allowed to wear Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday” dress from 1962 and controversially confessed to losing weight via a fad diet to channel the late screen siren. Other best-dressed stars included Cardi B, the rapper who dripped chain-link Versace, and supermodel Gigi Hadid, who towered in a red latex bodice and duvet-like cape also by the Italian label.
Hadid’s model sister, Bella, signalled the vintage fashion craze that would define the year at May’s Cannes Film Festival, wearing museum-worthy Gucci from the ’90s and a Versace dress that was a decade older than herself. Another of the best dressed was Jeanne Cadieu; the French fashion model attended Cannes with Jake Gyllenhaal, in Loewe’s recently released pursed-lips dress that was one of the year’s standout silhouettes.
On home soil, May’s Australian Fashion Week in Sydney created an excited hubbub that transcended our borders. Among the well-known names – from Bianca Spender to Oroton and Aje – fresh-faced young designers showed their prowess, paving the way for new forms of representation. One was Erik Yvon, the Melbourne designer whose abundantly coloured collection was made to fit all genders and body types.
The new generation’s taste for eclecticism and exuberance was also clear at Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, in a collaborator-produced collection that lit up the Powerhouse Museum’s cavernous interior, and with Alix Higgins, the Sydney designer whose lycra party-wear is becoming an unofficial uniform for the Australian fashion set.
Esse Studios’ steady flow of new classics cemented it as a brand to watch, but the First Nations Fashion + Design show was one of the week’s outstanding moments, greeted with acclamation and celebration.
In addition to work from creatives including artist Paul McCann and designer Charlotte Bedford among others, Elaine George – the first Indigenous model to make the cover of Vogue, in 1993 – closed the show wearing a gold suit by Aarli Fashion and Zhivago.
Abroad, the world’s fashion-forward celebrities continued to dress to turn heads. Actor, heart-throb, and menswear maestro Timothée Chalamet wore a backless outfit from designer Haider Ackermann on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival. It prompted acclaim from many and Chalamet reinforced himself as one of the year’s most experimentally dressed men.
Other memorable style moments came from actor Jodie Turner-Smith, resplendent in a colourful gown by American designer Christopher John Rogers, and Cate Blanchett, who promoted her new film, Tár, in a corsetted Schiaparelli haute couture pantsuit with flowers emerging from the décolletage.
In September the spring/summer ’23 shows ushered in new excitement. Showing in New York, Fendi’s resort 2023 collection was a nostalgia-filled lovefest dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the industry-beloved Baguette handbag, which rose to prominence on Sex and the City.
In a fashion world where viral runway moments reign supreme, the reappearance of formerly retired supermodel Linda Evangelista on the runway – with Sarah Jessica Parker, one of the Baguette bag’s first endorsers, in the front row – set cameras flashing.
In Paris, Loewe produced a season-defining collection, with designer Jonathan Anderson adopting the sterile anthurium flower as a motif, and adorning shoes with balloons, but it was French label Coperni that produced the season’s peak viral moment when a scientist arrived on the runway and sprayed a “dress” on a partially nude Bella Hadid with Fabrican (pictured left), an aerosol-contained material. It garnered millions of views on social media.
By the time Moschino’s creative director Jeremy Scott showed – a literal interpretation of “inflation” with collars, peplums and other flourishes that looked like blow-up pool toys – it was clear surrealism was a main theme of the season, with designers sharing their takes on global events.
This went wrong for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, whose “Yeezy” collection featured T-shirts that appeared to mock the Black Lives Matter movement, drawing ire from celebrities and online commentators, and causing sportswear behemoth Adidas to end its partnership with the rapper.
In another dramatic instance, Balenciaga drew criticism when its giftwear campaign in November featured teddy bears apparently in bondage attire and held by children, prompting the brand to issue a public apology.
Meanwhile, the election of Italy’s new Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, during Milan Fashion Week provoked industry questions about how Italy’s diverse fashion scene will respond next season to the far-right leadership.
Nevertheless, fashion made liberated strides in 2022. Body diversity was front and centre, with a new guard of “curve” supermodels – Precious Lee and Paloma Elsesser among them – influencing the size-conservative European fashion sphere.
The lines between menswear and womenswear blurred further: take Chalamet’s womenswear-influenced backless look on the red carpet at Venice, or an increase in shows that featured men and women on the same runway.
It was also a year of runways dominated by celebrities; Cher, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton appeared for Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana and Versace, respectively. Fashion lit the way for many in 2022 – expect the same in 2023.
