The element of air in fashion history Every time designers have taken inspiration from the four elements

According to cosmogony, the fundamental elements of the Earth are four: fire, air, earth, and water. For ancient philosophers, the air was the emblem of balance, the mediator of water and fire, an element synonymous with a purity of spirit and vivid imagination. Perhaps for these very reasons, it has been easy for the fashion world to translate this element into clothes, drawing inspiration from the elegant flow of the wind and the lightness of clouds, sometimes for the design of accessories, sometimes for the concept of entire collections.

Few times one can avoid mentioning the myth of Alexander McQueen when talking about fashion shows with a sophisticated concept. Despite the fact that the British designer has very often chosen fire and the color red in his collections, such as in 'Joan' and 'Highland Rape', and in the numerous homages to his Scottish roots, among his most famous fashion shows - which are basically all of them - 'The Widows of Culloden' certainly stands out. Staged in March 2006, the collection debuted in Paris, on a wooden catwalk flanked by a glass pyramid similar to that of the Louvre. The sound of the wind was incorporated into the show's soundtrack to suggest cold skies, while the models walked the runway wearing winged creations by Irish hatter Philip Treacy, a tribute to the designer's historic muse Isabella Blow and a clear reference to McQueen's lifelong passion for using animals for symbolic purposes. Despite the unforgettable sophistication of the collection, the highlight was the arrival of Kate Moss, who floated through the air through a hologram wrapped in white organza ruffles. It was a memorable moment, not so much for the use of this advanced technology, but more so for the choice to cast Kate Moss, a supermodel who just a few months earlier had lost multiple contracts with established designers after being at the center of a major scandal, photographed by the British media while doing cocaine at a party. With an evocative image that left the audience speechless, McQueen made Moss a dreamlike floating vision, re-establishing her reputation as a great icon.

Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan also used another great piece of 'winged' inspiration for his 1999 Echoform collection, a designer who, like McQueen, went down in history for his high-production shows that intertwined fashion with performance art. Presented on an all-white go-kart-like runway, the collection was opened by a jaw-dropping futuristic look: a shiny fiberglass dress assembled with the look of an airplane fuselage which, when model Audrey Marney reached the apex of the runway, began to move, raising some of its segments imitating the pre-takeoff movement of an airplane's wings. The concept behind this design, based on the designer's intricate relationship with the world of aviation and migration, was also taken up by Chalayan with the Airmail Dress, a dress made of a paper-like fabric called Tyvek that can be folded and sent, like a letter that «can become a symbol of absence or presence.»