What is the closest thing that fashion offers to the essential garb of being human? The bodysuit, as presented in Celine's S/S10 collection
Every minimalist needs a bodysuit. After all, purism is about clean lines, not visible panty-lines. Phoebe Philo realised as much in her debut collection for Celine this spring, where she teamed them with plain, low-key separates and taught us a lesson in sumptuously modern ascetism.
A-line leather skirts, slouchy slacks and clinging lurex beg to be paired with something simple and unfussy – crucially, with something that will not unfurl as you walk or bend over. Is the humble onesie the sartorial embodiment of the essential truth that Frank Stella and Mies van der Rohe were searching for? Sometimes even the highest contemplations come down to the most practical of everyday vagaries. Living is an art form too, you see. Donna Karan realised it, and so did Alaïa. Karan introduced The Body in her 1989 Seven Easy Pieces collection, a capsule of garments that reduced dressing to its essential function. This was no artistic move, but a social one, freeing up women from their clothes, providing options beyond suiting and cocktail dresses.
It was the new t-shirt, a smart but comfortable item that could be worn to work or at home. Alaïa’s take, meanwhile, was sexier: clinging, bandage pieces that hugged curves, allowing the clothes layered on top to fit closer and tighter than ever.
They offer a seamless link to minimalism. The bodysuit is the closest thing that fashion offers to the essential garb of being human: our own hide. Were it not for the person beneath, our clothes would “perish with emptiness,” to use Sylvia Plath’s description of a plaster cast on a broken leg. Philo’s unadorned, unembellished versions even came in flesh tones, further underlining the sense of clothes as skin, and she showed t-shirts made from leather, playing up their physicality.
It all points to a rather less obvious fashionable must-have – beyond the bodysuit to the birthday suit.
Harriet Walker is a fashion writer at The Independent
Zoë Taylor has appeared in Le Gun, Bare Bones, Ambit and Dazed & Confused. She is currently working on her third graphic novella and an exhibition
