![]() ![]() "I just imagined a power broker in a board meeting."Īnd when the business day is done, that same tuxedo transitions smoothly into an evening milieu, although it does still remain a less conventional choice. "I'm obsessed with the future and with modernism and I'm constantly injecting what I deem different and never seen before, but still within the confines of traditional garments," Braganza says. While the Canadian designer consistently shows a formal, tuxedo-inspired jacket, he finessed the cut and pumped up the edge this season. In London, the message from Jean-Pierre Braganza was similarly assertive. For his latest Lanvin collection, Alber Elbaz enthusiastically deconstructed Le Smoking, removing sleeves, remixing fabrics and reintroducing peaked lapels, sometimes in white. The belted tuxes designed by Haider Ackermann serve as interesting counterpoints to those from Narciso Rodriguez, who went for effortless slouch. There they were for spring 2013: long and rectangular at Balmain, nipped and slashed at Jean Paul Gaultier, spacious at Stella McCartney, even more spacious at Maison Martin Margiela. Perhaps it was the anticipation of Slimane's debut that helped drive, even if subconsciously, the industry-wide tux trend. ![]() They seduced retailers, who apparently swooned over the collection (and will likely be worn to seduce as well). When the moment arrived last October, his jackets did not disappoint, especially when paired with long skirts and second-skin pants. Arguably, this background offered sufficient preparation to tackle Le Smoking in his new role at YSL. Today, the house is under the creative direction of Hedi Slimane, who defined an extremely slim suit silhouette during his tenure at Dior Homme. It featured 50 styles of the suit – an impressive count by any measure, but only one-fifth of the varieties conceived of by Saint Laurent throughout his career. In 2005, an exhibition based on Le Smoking at the Fondation Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent in Paris was fittingly titled Smoking Forever. "Now that's not as relevant, but the tuxedo is still so strongly associated with a man. "It was the idea of a powerful woman being in control," Federau says of the shoot. By juxtaposing the tailored structure of the black tuxedo against a naked body, Newton creates a thrilling, high-contrast tension, revealing the fetish potential of gender-bending formal attire in the process. In one of the best-known images, she is joined by another woman who is nude except for a pillbox-style hat and pair of heels. It was well after that movie's release and Le Smoking's runway debut, however, that the tuxedo as womanly garb acquired one of its greatest – perhaps the greatest – interpreters, admirers and proponents: Helmut Newton, whose famous 1975 photos of a dinner-jacketed dame with slicked-back hair brought it into the mainstream. Indeed, Dietrich's famous tux-clad romp in the 1930 film Morocco radiates heat to this day. "With the tux, there's an incredible upper-class male glamour that, when a woman, becomes so erotic." "Normally the idea of androgynous clothing implies a de-emphasis of sex appeal," Valerie Steele, the fashion historian and director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, says from New York.
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