What is a 'masculine' silhouette? Oversize or slim fit, body shapes are designers' newest obsession

It seems that, at the basis of the word silhouette, there is an etymological concoction of history and classism made edible by the taxes imposed by Etienne de Silhouette, the Comptroller General of Finances under the reign of Louis XV. His cuts to the detriment of the people and the wealth of the nobility and clergy ended up shaping a style à la Silhouette, a portrait in vogue in the 18th century that reduced people's outlines to barely noticeable black shadows. A Silhouette was also called trousers without pockets, which ended up straight in the mental encyclopaedia of us moderns to designate a figure or structure outlined to the bone. Throughout history, women have been the subjects most manipulated in terms of silhouette: Coco Chanel had endowed them with a dose of contemptuous pragmatism by constructing high-waisted suits and shifting chains on bags, while Monsieur Dior, a few years later, had jammed them into waspish waists on which to lay bar jackets and floral-printed full skirts. On men's bodies, on the other hand, there have never been any major interventions: it was enough, in modernity in particular, to focus on the work uniform and its component units to bring about major revolutions. Things, however, seem to have changed just now, at a time in history when the economic crisis and the fear of exposing oneself on a narrative level has been compounded by the sharp differentiation between fashion and luxury. Tangible and recognisable forms are sought after, areas of the body typically associated with the sensuality of the female sphere are discovered, the ideal of elegance is pursued, or, bypassing the mainstream, everything is deformed, going beyond any anatomical taxonomy.

Slim vs over

«It was a silhouette,» explained Jonathan Anderson in an interview in The Washington Post. «And for me, the fantasy of being a designer when I was younger was really the idea of creating a silhouette.» According to journalist Rachel Tashjian, the author of the interview, Anderson came very close with Loewe's SS24 collection by proposing «something we hadn't seen before: an ambivalent shape, rigid and baggy at the same time, that made the spontaneous and casual gesture of stuffing your hands in your pockets disarming, at times threatening». Very high-waisted trousers, in denim and with all-over rhinestone decorations, which even attracted the attention of the Financial Times, which was surprised to have spotted them on the Sanremo 2024 stage. The incriminated are singer Ghali (in full Loewe look) and his stylist Ramona Tabita, according to whom it is «an evolution, with a man who has shaken off toxic masculinity and proposes another model, not necessarily gender fluid, but virile in a contemporary sense». Liberation which, in the case of Rick Owens, becomes deformation in its purest state - a masculine silhouette supported by inflatable rubber boots, blankets knotted together to form winter tops and "bombastically sculptural" coats in the FW24 collection. A reflection, perhaps, on how primitive the gesture of continually creating forms to inhabit is. A silhouette, in short. An old story that fashion likes to tell as always new.