Concorde 009: Go Cloud Mode
Padded & puffed-up slappers, plus great crochet hats & rare tees and hoodies
Welcome to Concorde. You could call it a women’s vertical, but the insights, intel and “cute swag information” transcend gender. The full archive lives here…
Clouds… they’re like sick white “tags” on the blue “walls” of our atmosphere. And if you’ve ever seen a lenticular, mammatus, or asperatus?? You know Gaia has some crazy handstyles.
This is why some of the greatest visual art humanity has produced is about clouds. Vik Muniz… Gerhard Richter… Georgia O’Keeffe… Caspar David Friedrich tha g-d!! Have you ever seen Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Clouds? It’s a hacked version of Super Mario Bros. from 2002 that strips the game of all visual elements except clouds and sky. I (Erin) first caught this at the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and fell into a trance watching it on my computer the other day…
Letting those frilly 16-bit cumuli float past endlessly, like friendly ghosts, is extremely 💆♀️ comforting. Also? The clouds are very cute.
And today, clothes that are comforting and cute are on the docket.
Because who hasn’t dreamed of pulling off a “‘Swag Linus’ from Peanuts” move, wearing your duvet out into the world … yet somehow still looking fitted? When I checked out the Fall 2023 shows, it seemed to me that several designers shared this dream, sending fashionable cocoons down the runway in the form of padded and stuffed pieces…
Like, these insanely romantic hay-filled dresses from Simone Rocha, which captivated me. And while hay-stuffed tulle gowns are not an everyday look (at least not for me!) today we’re doing a “CONCORDE TREND REPORT” on a bunch of wonderfully lofted yet very rockable puffed-up clothing and accessories.
🙏 May they cushion us in these tender times without hindering our drip🙏
— Erin & Jonah
The last time padding had a mainstream fashion moment was in the ‘80s, when shoulder pads out to there were the wave. Those pads — crescent-shaped foam-filled pillows— were meant not just to define but exaggerate women’s shoulders and, so the story goes, create a stronger, more masculine shape as we “climbed the corporate ladder.” (I’m not sure that’s the only reason they were a hit: Shoulders that appear broader help the waist look smaller by comparison.)
You might be wary of padding your figure, but it’s a look that can work great across many body types. It’s all in the balance of what’s padded and what’s pared down. Take Prada’s Fall 2023 collection: The outfit below top left is an explicit nod to bedding, and its full-on volume would indeed be difficult for most of us to pull off. But the puffed mini-skirt below top right isn’t as difficult, because it’s contrasted with bare legs and a fine-gauge sweater…
This look reflects springtime swaddling at its best, when the weather remains “transitional” and your fit reflects that... Moreover, the bared gams play against any potential for dowdiness and achieve something we don’t often associate with puffers: sex appeal!
There are plenty of 😮💨 excellent puffed accessories 😮💨 that playfully nod at this trend, too, not only in nylon but in leather, corduroy, rubber and cotton. And many of them are on sale right now…
Before we go any further, though, let me emphasize that I’m not talking about pieces that riff on the familiar, channeled puffer coat. A “purse that looks like REI sells it” and other “a Patagonia puffer, except it’s a skirt”-type pieces have a literal, borderline-noveltyish energy that these pieces, more elegantly, don’t. Instead, they’re softly stuffed, ever-so-slightly plumped.