NYFW: Faith through the Eyes of High Fashion
With the highly-anticipated New York Fashion Week taking place, new looks have captivated audiences and an unexpected theme seems to reoccur: religion.
With the coming of another year comes our favorite annual holiday—New York Fashion Week. This September, New York City turned into a fashion epicenter yet again as designers debuted collections each day, showcasing new fashion and future trends closing off 2022 and heading into 2023. While so much can be said about every show, we’ve picked some of our favorites to discuss as we take a look at the future of fashion and what looks will dominate our wardrobes from here on out.
Mirror Palais is a relatively new brand created by stylist and designer Marcello Gaia in 2019. Many of Gaia’s designs have gone viral on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok, often showcasing beautifully-draped fabrics that highlight the silhouettes and shadows of the human body. Gaia held his fashion week show in the Church of Ascension; a fitting choice as his pieces played with the conservative nature of religion and the silhouettes Gaia’s clothing is known for. Gaia stated that this theme made a cultural statement that was cut from a piece of his past, as he “grew up in the church, and it was hard, having to suppress homosexuality.” Not only does his collection represent the modern relationships between the church and fashion, it walks the line between repression and expression of the self—all while presenting gorgeous clothing that stands out from the norm. We’ll be sure to watch out for Marcello Gaia and his collections next NYFW and beyond.
Similar to the Mirror Palais show, a religious theme was brought into the looks presented on the Versace runway. This trend of gothic religion was showcased in many of the looks through veils and plunging necklines decorated with large diamond crosses. While Mirror Palais’ style is more ethereal, Verasce played with an edgy, almost costume-esque look to contrast common religious fashion, reminscent of the medieval styles of the Florentine Renaissance. With their daring leather textures and neon colors, the looks presented a different religious-fashion contrast that rang true to the Versace brand.
Both of these shows presented a provocative contrast between traditional and religious style that demands onlookers to take note of this cultural plunge into the renaissance styles of the 1500s. Whether gothic or ethereal, tight or structured, loose or flowy, the popular and stylistic contrast between modern fashion and religion seems to be the focal point of this year’s NYFW.
As we move into 2023 and fashion continues to evolve, we can expect this religiously-centered trend to trickle down and become a part of our everyday looks. But this exciting new (old) front of fashion all started in New York this September, and we can’t wait to see how these trends diffuse into the styles of today and tomorrow.