“Wrap, tie, gird, drape”—The power of fashion on the human body

Loosening allows fabric to billow and envelop the wearer, expanding the body's proportions. Through internal padding or pleating, garments create a protective cocoon, forming a soft barrier between the body and the world.

Curves are sculpted—sometimes in soft, enveloping arcs, other times in razor-sharp contours designed to captivate the gaze.

Pulling—both in length and structure—challenges conventions, as if fashion itself mirrors the tides, shaping and reshaping the landscape of the body.

Covering is a statement of power, delineating the boundaries between the intimate and the public. Whether through diagonal lines that caress the body’s length or through rebellious, unexpected layering, concealment becomes a deliberate act.

Revealing teases the eye, offering glimpses that are as suggestive as they are restrained—commanding reverence for both what is seen and what remains unseen.

Hailed by Coco Chanel as a master couturier in the truest sense, Cristóbal Balenciaga was not merely a designer but a draftsman, a cutter, a tailor, and a pattern maker of exceptional skill. He famously declared: “A fashion designer must be an architect of design, a sculptor of shape, a painter of colour, a musician of profound rhythm.”

Just these five design principles alone have inspired countless love stories between flesh and fabric throughout the centuries of human civilisation.

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Humanity is the improbable outcome of four billion years of evolution. If the theory of evolution truly explains our origins, imagine the journey from microscopic molecules drifting in the ocean 2.5 billion years ago, to the eyeless fish of the Cambrian period, to mammals fleeing from dinosaurs under the long, perilous nights of the Triassic—until, at last, Homo sapiens. The miracle of the human body, shaped by the extraordinary qualities that have allowed our species to endure, has walked this earth for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, each individual carrying their own unique sense of self, emotion, and aesthetic ideal.

Compared with the slow, methodical pace of anatomical evolution, the fashion revolution has surged forward at breathtaking speed, seemingly propelled by a force of ever-increasing acceleration. The corseted, jewel-toned gowns of the Renaissance held sway for two centuries. The Grecian-inspired, empire-waist silhouettes of Napoleonic France reigned for nearly a hundred years. The exaggerated S-curve of Art Nouveau dresses—with their rigid corsetry, distorting the female form—dominated for several decades at the turn of the 20th century. From that point onward, fashion trends that once defined eras in centuries and decades began accelerating, their lifespans shrinking year by year.

The catalyst for this rapid transformation lies in the Industrial Revolution, which reshaped European textile production before expanding its influence worldwide. With mass manufacturing came the rise of department stores, making fashion more accessible than ever before. Globalisation then synchronised the world’s sartorial rhythms, creating shared ideals of style and aspiration. Yet, as subcultures flourished and gender norms evolved, diverse interpretations of beauty also emerged. While fashion trends continued to evolve at a dizzying pace, the best-dressed individuals were not necessarily those who followed trends most closely—but rather those who knew their bodies best. After all, the right combination of trousers, shirts, and accessories remains the most effortless way to refine one’s appearance—without ever having to go under the knife.

Clothing reshapes the body’s proportions, influencing how wearers interact with both physical space and those around them. Each designer has their own philosophy on how best to honour the human form. Some fashion houses remain devoted to classical ideals of beauty—whether through the precise symmetry of the golden ratio or the mathematically engineered proportions of broad-shouldered, long-limbed men, measured and fitted to perfection.

For those blessed with an hourglass figure, Azzedine Alaïa’s mastery of sculptural tailoring offers the ultimate homage to curves. His meticulous craftsmanship embraces and intensifies the body’s natural contours, wrapping the wearer in an aura of sensual confidence. Meanwhile, Schiaparelli elevates this approach to surrealist heights, experimenting with body architecture in bold, avant-garde ways—transforming the wearer into a living work of art.

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The allure of body-worship through sculptural dressing also propelled Thierry Mugler to fame—except that his theatrical extravagance allowed the French fashion house to explore audacious concepts in each of its resplendent haute couture shows. Models flaunted their sculpted physiques while transforming into mythical and fantastical beings—such as the ethereal Chimera in the Autumn/Winter 1997 collection—or fusing fashion with machinery, turning corsets into the roaring heads of high-displacement motorcycles in Spring/Summer 1992. In this way, fashion transcended its traditional role and ventured into the realm of genetics, defying nature by fictionalising, deifying, or even mechanising the human form into unimaginable incarnations.

The untamed creativity of the most radical visions has led other designers to reject convention entirely, expressing their interpretation of the human body’s potential in even more extreme ways. Yohji Yamamoto is one such revolutionary. A towering figure in both stature and influence, he has constructed an aesthetic universe in which black holes dominate—shrouds of darkness that envelop the body, absorbing light, dissolving conventional beauty standards, yet still capturing the melancholic poetry of impermanence.

Another ‘lord of darkness’ who has championed a post-apocalyptic vision is none other than Rick Owens. His stark, sculptural silhouettes seem to consume the wearer’s form entirely, as if clothing could engulf the body in an embrace of raw, dystopian elegance. Yet, Owens himself is a self-proclaimed gym enthusiast, famously asserting in a 2009 interview that the ultimate expression of high fashion is not fabric or tailoring, but the daily discipline of body sculpting through rigorous exercise.

And, of course, Rei Kawakubo must be acknowledged—her avant-garde creations defy the very function of clothing. Kawakubo exaggerates and obscures the body, transforming the wearer into a colossal, otherworldly entity. Through gaping voids, swelling protrusions, and undulating distortions, she dismantles the concept of form itself. Her designs reject the notion of a body existing beneath the fabric; instead, the garments seem to consume the wearer entirely, as if the clothing were a sentient, parasitic species, merging with its host to transcend into a new, unknowable being.

To varying degrees, fashion designers have experimented, provoked, and led both fashion aficionados and the wider public towards radical new perspectives on the body—reimagining it as extraordinary, genderless, non-binary, and even anti-social. In a world where bodies—especially women’s—are increasingly politicised and controlled, these designers have turned the tables, asserting fashion as a means of bodily autonomy, reinvention, and transcendence. Ultimately, fashion is how we reshape ourselves to reach the spiritual threshold required for survival—where creativity unlocks infinite possibilities for what it truly means to be human.

This article has been published from the original feature in Tatler Vietnam, January 2025 issue.

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