In Fashion, People Live Forever
As the losses mount, here's a small reminder of the legacy these artists leave behind.
There is a very famous Maya Angelou quote that, to paraphrase, says that people will forget a lot about you but they will never forget the way you make them feel. I think the reason the saying became popular to the point of cliché is that it's true. And as we reflect on the fashion giants that have been lost over the last year, it's a quote that keeps coming back to me.
A lot of people publicly mourning the loss of Alber Elbaz, Virgil Abloh, Andre Leon Talley, and most recently Thierry Mugler, never had the chance to meet any of these larger-than-life figures. They don’t know what they were like at a family party or what they talked about over lunch. What they do know, and what I know, is how they made us feel through the clothing they created and the art they made with it. Fashion is evocative, well beyond just fabric and the seams. A dress can be a personal time capsule, even if you're just looking at it through a picture. And these designers and fashion figures solidified their legacies through adornment.
Abloh’s tragic passing will be felt for decades, but he will live on through the millions of people who were made to feel like fashion belonged to them, too. Like the teenagers I saw four years ago, lined around six blocks in Old Port Montreal waiting to pick up a tote bag with his signature quotation marks. It wasn’t necessarily the white and green bag itself, it was how they felt carrying it and having a little piece of his mind that will stay with them.
Elbaz is locked inside the hearts of those who remember the way he made glamour and sexiness look powerful through his Lanvin collections. His clothing — shown on models like Lindsay Wixon, or people he cast in the streets, or a woman in her 80s who always dreamed of modeling — was a defining piece of a cultural shift for clothing. He saw women for who they were, not what the fashion industry fantasized they would be, and those who wore his clothes or loved watching them come down the runway knew that.
Talley made people who were not historically included in fashion feel seen. His thoughts on beauty and art made us all feel like we had the ability to tap into our own stylistic genius. With his colorful capes and exaggerated jackets, he made it OK to be unapologetically extraordinary and show it through your clothing.
Mugler, who blurred the line between costume and couture, created generational markers through his clothing. People won’t forget the first time they saw the image of David Bowie holding a silver guitar over his head while wearing an equally as startling neon green suit, or Diana Ross wearing embellished sheer catsuits like she was born in them. His work proved that fashion can be as absurd as it sometimes seems, and you can feel it in every piece made by him or inspired by his work.
The loss of these figures is devastating, especially for their friends and family. But I hope there is solace in knowing that fashion and the brilliance of the people who brought it to life has a unique way of keeping those who have passed connected to those still living. We’re lucky to have experienced it.
*This Stuff is a newsletter by me! fashion journalist, Alyssa Hardy. Three times a week, I unpack the ways our clothes impact the world through news, essays, interviews and more. Subscribe for free here and follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.*