THE JOURNAL

Louis Vuitton AW21 show in Paris, 20 January 2021. Photograph by Mr Dominique Charriau/Getty Images
There’s a faint hint in the fashion world about what big trends will come next. This is something that generally happens twice a year, of course, but the menswear shows happening right now feel particularly pertinent because most of humanity has forgotten how to dress. The New York Times coined the term “hatewear” at the start of the year to refer to the clothes we actively dislike wearing that have become symbols of stress, while Esquire UK came up with “sadwear” to define the comfort-blanket clothes that soothe us when we’re feeling down.
Yes, it’s undeniable there’s somewhat of an emotional reckoning happening in our wardrobes right now; the question is how it will play out. Rendered sartorially impotent by the never-ending lockdown, are we consigned to live out the rest of our days in faded sweatpants? Or, will we see such a release of the pent-up desire to dress up as soon as we are allowed to, that we will be back in town wearing baroque morning coats and ballgowns?

From left: Fendi, SS21. Photograph courtesy of Fendi. Ermenegildo Zegna, SS21. Courtesy of Ermenegildo Zegna. Prada, SS21. Photograph courtesy of Prada
For an emerging answer, look to the Italians. Mr Alessandro Sartori presented a selection of belted coats that looked like louche and expensive dressing gowns for his collection for Ermenegildo Zegna last week, that near-perfectly hit the mark between smart and comfortable. Then, among comfortable tailoring, Fendi and Prada both showed knitted onesies in their respective collections. Not the squishy, flammable kind that strips grown adults of their dignity, but fitted, tactile jumpsuits woven out of soft and expensive wool and worn with lace-up hard shoes.
Then, over in Paris, Mr Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton presented a collection that nodded to his Ghanaian heritage and included belted blanket coats, as well as pinstriped silk pyjamas worn with a shirt and tie.
It’s a stretch, of course, that knitted onesies will become part of our working uniform by this time next year, or that we’ll be wearing our pyjamas to meetings (at least, when not working from home). But perhaps there’s a way out of the collective sartorial rut we currently find ourselves in with items that are too fancy to be sadwear and too stylish to be hatewear. Instead, what’s coming from designers is a comfortable, elevated proposition that renders both hatewear and sadwear entirely unnecessary.
Not smart-casual, god forbid, but something that bridges the gap between sharp style and nonchalant ease, blurring the line between getting dressed up to head out and just giving up and going to bed. So in the tradition of slapping a name on every other trend that happens, let’s go ahead and call it snoozecore. You heard it here first.