Zac Posen has given me the feels since I was thirteen and figuring out if fashion was my forte. A few years later, when I met him in at Teen Vogue HQ in NYC and my crush on him soared a million times over – so forgive me, but I’m a tad biased to Posen.
Thoughts whilst scrolling:
Girrrrrl, give me a blazer and some loafers and I’m on board.
That tuxedo peplum, mhmm. YES.
Mesh and cutouts? Am I hallucinating a Wang show…?
These micro mini bags are to die for – where can I acquire one of these bad boys?
Feather detail & baby pink – HEAVENLY.
Waiiiiiiit, THEY ALL HAVE DIFFERENT HAIR STYLES.
And this is when it struck me – something I’d heard awhile ago in class with Dr. Ben Barry, on the topic of diversity and tokenism. It is not unusual to be scrolling through a big show where you see models of all same body type, height and face cut, with one identifiable difference, their skin tone. More often that not, it seemed to avoid the backlash from press and critics, designers included models of different races – African American, East Asian and the rare South Asian simple as a token gesture, adorning them in a uniform – dehumanizing them.
But as I scrolled through ZAC Zac Posen’s s/s 16 RTW, I saw women. I didn’t see colour, but I saw personal style. Sure, their makeup was the same, but each had their hair adorned in a different style – this may be me, but could this be Zac saying: ‘Hey, this is for you. You can look as you want, style yourself as you want and be whoever you want, and still wear these clothes?’, maybe. But let’s be honest, height + size wise, they are all modelesque, but a step towards non-token diversity? In my books, I think so.
^ Back to thoughts:
Is that an asymmetrical hem? Not again…!
Oh HOLA Coco, post baby bod on fleek, sister.
ZAAAAACC, you are perfection in that double breasted creation. Can we be BFFs already?!
All in all, this collection was transmitting some ‘back to work (but mentally at the beach)’ vibes with its early structured looks but as the show progressed softened up debuting Posen’s signature drapery + whimsical fabrics that made me feel very Eden-esque. I will say, I do feel that this collection lacks cohesion but I’m hoping this master creator will pull out all the stops for the ZAC POSEN show later this week!
Let me know what you fellow fashion minds think – am I totally just ranting about tokenism or did I kind of just discover something kind of relevant? Talk below!
xoxo
nb: ALL IMAGES C/O of VOGUE RUNWAY
