Comfort Is The New Couture

If trends are made by tapping into the zeitgeist, what does that mean for fashion when all we wore for months was loungewear?

- Ashwini Arun Kumar

In 2019, Serena Williams paired her yellow Atelier Versace dress with a pair of Nike x Off-White Air Force One sneakers in a matching highlighter hue at the Met Gala, pre-pandemic, of course. Her sneakers were an unexpected accessory at an iconic event, where the dress code unofficially demanded heels—the sharper, the better. This was an act of rebellion, buoyed by a strong sense of Williams's own personal aesthetic. While it might have met with its fair share of eye rolls and disapproving head shakes, there was an equal and opposite juggernaut of applause.

When it comes to expensive clothes, we have eschewed the idea of comfort for the longest time. We romanticise the pain of wearing uncomfortable shoes that squish our toes, or clothes that constrict as a luxury reserved for the lucky few who can afford it. Pain has become aspirational, to a point where we want to experience it for ourselves when celebrities such as Kim Kardashian talk about wearing couture that makes it hard for them to eat and difficult to sit.