Cathy Horyn on the Current State of Fashion
The Cut’s fashion critic-at-large joined this week’s episode of the In Her Shoes podcast to look back at the year in style.
Cathy Horyn, the Cut’s fashion critic-at-large, has had quite a year. She traveled to New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Milan to review the womenswear and couture collections, of course. She critiqued the most exciting and sought-after launches, including Phoebe Philo’s namesake brand, the Met’s Lagerfeld exhibit, Daniel Lee’s debut at Burberry, and Pharrell’s at Louis Vuitton. In Paris last month, she closed out the season by walking the runway for Balenciaga. For this week’s episode of the In Her Shoes podcast, Horyn joined Cut editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples to look back at it all, look around and survey the current state of the industry, and look ahead to what’s next in fashion. Highlights below, listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
On the themes that emerged this year in design:
We started seeing it more than a year ago, but we saw a big emphasis on what I would call “the liberated body.” Think of Elena Velez in New York, Dimitra Petsa in London, Raf Simons’s very last collection for spring of this year with a lot of fishnet tops and leotards and about the body and in motion. Marc Jacobs was doing sort of similar ideas in his collection. We’re seeing a lot of nakedness.
On fashion’s talent problem:
When I did that piece, one of the top guys at LVMH, Sidney Toledano said, “The marketing guys have taken over.” These companies have become machines. And we all know that when things become bigger and bigger and more complicated, you know, it isn’t about the one designer [anymore]. It’s not about Cristóbal Balenciaga in his studio doing what he wants. Those days are long, long gone. Even in the last decade, there’s been a little bit of a curtailing of freedom.
On the next generation:
Lagerfeld used to say, you only need three designers a decade to keep it moving. And to an extent, that’s kind of true. There are a lot more voices in the choir that want to see change and want to see things done differently, whether it be different genders, races, sizes, sexualities, all of that. But at the same time, I’m most interested in people that have something to say and substance with that — not just shouting into the void, but actually, How would we move things forward? It’s interesting to see how that develops and progresses. And I’m curious if we’ll see any of that next year.