BRANKOPOPOVICBLOG: Power Dressing in the era of #MeToo

Gareth Pugh FW 2018

Being aware of it or not, the way we dress is often based on cultural constructs from history. Politics, ideology and identity are narrated through sartorials matters. Although many frontiers have pushed boundaries through fashion, the question is how much has actually changed. Fashion has always walked hand-in-hand with the events that are happing in the world, fashion expresses the zeitgeist and predicts the world that awaits.
In the era of #metoo movement and the Golden Globes black-dress-code protest, it has been just a matter of time when the 80's Power Dressing trend will hit the runways of mayor fashion weeks. Marc Jacobs and Gareth Pugh are just two examples who referenced power dressing 80's aesthetic and tailoring in their latest collections. Gareth Pugh stated that the FW 2018 collection is "for women who accept zero bullshit."

Embraced by the Instagram generation, the beautiful collections of these designers obviously speak for themselves, however it can not be ignored that it is rather sad that we have not left the black pages from the past behind.

Power dressing is a style that occured in the second half of the 1970s, and that developed further in the 1980s. It is a fashion style that enables women to establish their authority in a professional and political environment traditionally dominated by men.
The concept of power dressing was brought to popularity by John T. Molloy's manuals Dress for success (1975) and Women: dress for success (1980), which suggest a gender specific professional dress code. Molloy's manuals addressed a new kind of female workers entering in a typical masculine environment recommending them a "uniform" that would have helped them to acquire authority, respect and power at work.