This season's in thing? Aggressive stance!
It's not just a win, with extra-wide shoulders, very specific codpieces, and bald-man big-package whiteness, it's also causing conflagration on the catwalks.
That new style is hot, hot, HOT.
It has been years since the edginess of extremes tittilated the tastes of the tastemakers like they have this year.
Perhaps it is a culmination of natural fashion; perhaps it is a reaction to last year's "Binary Exposition" theme, that led to so many new lines from all the top campaign designers.
"With the sentiment in the air these days, exposition of impending collapse became the leitmotif I was actualizing," said Herfes-Million, designer of the "Harsh and Hard" frocks displayed in Paris this week.
"It didn't matter whether the collapse was of the soul of America, the double-lapel, the Constitution, the spike heel, the half-beard -- the meaning was that fear was manifested in representation."
Others were equally poetic in their response: "It's hard not to respond to the framework of Binary-ism, after the Binary Expositions of the last two years," said April Tuesday, in an interview in November. "'Right is Right' -- it's as clear as day, just as much as 'Left is Left' is right. Appropriateness of demographic is the zeitgeist driver of culture, don't you think?"
To this reporter, the facts seem clear about the evolution of last year's mini-trends: "Practical" is out, "Long-term" is so some other year, "Reasonable" is last year's 'she has so much personality' loser.
"Green" has been shown to be utterly un-sexy, and "Sustainable"?
Well, "Sustainable" is as hot as the Arctic these days.
On the other hand, "No way no how" is growing, and "Retro" is finding its color. "Yes" is waning, as "No" is waxing its powerful shoulders.
Of the "Binary Exposition" trends of the last two years? It's clear that not only are "binaries" still the 0's and 1's of politics and fashion, but the nulls and noughts (the eco, green, efficient, sustainable, sane fashion) are finally zeros and zeds.
Today the only question is how ready-to-wear next season's styles are.
With the ecosystem trends moving toward not just climate chaos, but also toward resource depletion, increasing income disparity, and natural constraints on consumption...
fashion has no choice but to respond:
we are hot, we are now, and we are together.