Can the Bandage Dress Survive Another Revival?

The bandage dress, that mid-80s invention that was dubbed "the sexy mummy look" for its bands of garter-like horizontal strips that molded the body into an ideal shape despite sins of overindulgence, has witnessed a resurgence lately—turning the spotlight on Hervé Léger, the fashion house that popularized the controversial garment for the clubbing era, as well as Michelle Ochs, the Filipino-American designer who is now the brand's creative director.

- RICKY TOLEDO & CHITO VIJANDRE

The brand actually opened its first Asian boutique in the Philippines in 2014 when a splashy launch featured brand ambassadors led by the country's style setters.

"It's time! Gen-Z deserves the revival," wrote Ochs in her Instagram post with a photo of Kaia Gerber, wearing the house's white bandage gown at the Toronto International Film Festival last September when the dress started a buzz and spread like wildfire on social media. It was a recreation of the one worn by Gerber's mother, the supermodel Cindy Crawford, to the Oscars in 1993 with Richard Gere.

"So much of the new generation that's discovering the brand for the first time wants to get dressed up, yearns for connection and going out," observes the designer who previously had her own atelier and had clients like Michelle Obama and Beyoncé. There's also a craving for nostalgia as Gen-Z digs up blasts-from-the-past looks, seeing them with fresh eyes.

"They're attracted to the silhouette for the same reasons millennials once were. It makes the body look incredible; it's sexy and simple," says celebrity stylist Cassy Meier, who dressed Suki Waterhouse in a pink Léger for her Blackout Drunk music video. Another visible proponent is Hailey Bieber, who wore a plum-colored version by Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent at the Fashion Trust US Awards and recently donned a '90s Léger in black, red and white which fashion critic Kim Russell declared as "criminally hot."