This season, designers are taking their cues from the stage and injecting collections with hyperfeminine looks that wouldn’t be out of place at the barre.
I love the ballet: its hypnotic flow of movement, the gentle thwacking of pointe shoes on wood. I love the soapy plotlines, somehow rendered through facial expressions and bodily gestures.
Carolina Herrera’s spring-summer 2024 collection; model Carla Ginola in a beige tulle mesh dress and ballet shoes; Carolina Herrera’s spring-summer show at New York Fashion Week; Chanel floats up the runway at Paris Fashion Week in January. Both must look effortless but demand perfection. Both require exactitude and technical prowess but also require spirit and flair. Both have an obsession with the body, celebrating and restricting it. Both are unashamed meditations on beauty that also explore darkness and chaos.
And so, yes, ballet is everywhere right now. At Rachel Antonoff’s spring-summer 2024 show, New York City Ballet dancer India Bradley starred in a rainbow of pointe shoes. In the same season, Adeam closed its show with a surprise performance from New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck. Around the same time, cool-girl brand Reformation released a capsule with New York City Ballet.