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Trends: Spring/Summer 2012 - Home Maid
Duality has always been a favorite in fashion. And so it is that every Yin has a Yang and every fine upstanding lady has her maid. Indeed, aprons, headdresses, strict overalls, nursing, housekeeping and governess uniforms in medical white, serious black or professional pastels curiously crept into the Paris, Milan and London Spring/Summer 2012 collections.
Have maids ever been as popular as this past year? From a single model to a whole collection, almost every designer presented his very own maid in every sense of the word: cooking housewives, hotel maids, nurses and nannies…‘transparent’, silent women from whom obedience, compassion, devotion, and hospitable service is expected.
Jean Paul Gaultier, Kenzo and Emanuel Ungaro all toyed with white and black uniforms, although the stereotypical erotic ‘French maid’ or the opera ‘Soubrette’ costume party classics were scarce (Sass & Bide or Hakaan). For once eroticism is not on the fashion agenda. Has sexiness gone undercover?
Since compulsive shoppers are a persecuted species, the household economist female is today’s heroine. The social and financial environment becoming increasingly uncertain, patience, tenderness, and care are clearly requested from women…would you PLEASE?
As a tribute to housewives, Antonio Marras, Dolce & Gabbana and Alexis Mabille referred to domestic chores by reinterpreting kitchen wear: grandmothers’ aprons, vegetable prints, tablecloth florals and picnic stripes…
Ironically, the John Galliano brand presented Edwardian Mary Poppins’, while Miu Miu and Costume National took the nanny trend more literally with their nursery pink or baby blue outfits.
Furthermore, for the latest Piazza Sempione collection, Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi proposed their nurse version of minimalism. Similarly, Jil Sander showed an all-white collection of ‘hygienic’ buttoned-up, ankle-length nurse dresses, tidy collars and utility boots. Gabriele Colangelo even added a ‘disposable’ plastic apron to an otherwise surgical blue long-sleeved dress.
Besides communicating their thoughts on women, designers seem to allude to their own role and job. Perhaps we could deduce uneasiness on their behalf as they sense the danger of designing functional clothes that are ever simpler to produce and thus put their creativity at risk? Women in maid outfits dressed by designer-servants of the industry? Humorously enough, Hussein Chalayan appeared dressed as a butler while serving drinks to his models at the end of his show.
Louise Kissa
lkissa@neurope.eu
About the Author
Louise Kissa is New Europe's fashion editor.
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