The Shape of Fashion’s New Power Play
- Mkhetwa Baloyi
- Oct 28
- 2 min read
The Shape Issue
Fashion has always been a conversation. Right now, the loudest voice is shape because shape doesn’t whisper; it declares.
In this article, we track the silhouettes that stop traffic. This season, the body is no longer just dressed it’s re-engineered. A single exaggerated line can rewrite how the world reads you.
When clothing becomes architecture
We’re calling it fabric tectonics. Viviers Studio builds power shoulders that could hold up a skyline quiet monuments to confidence. Nao Serati pours liquid drapes that move like breath, turning emotion into motion. Connade and The Bam Collective inflate coats and sleeves into playful voids: wearable safe rooms for the bold.
These aren’t trends. They’re blueprints. Every seam is a manifesto.
The body as canvas
Shape is the new skin. A corseted waist from Viviers armors the torso like modern chainmail. A sleeve from The Bam Collective balloons past the wrist, erasing the arm’s familiar border. The gap between you and the garment? That’s the runway. That’s where identity remixes itself.
Shapes as mirrors
Trendsetters don’t follow culture they forecast it. South Africa’s new guard is proof: oversized volumes for a generation claiming space, sharp angles for a continent cutting new edges. Politics, spirituality, identity these aren’t backdrops. They’re the pattern blocks.
Trendsetters Only Forecast:
Volume Play: Coats that swallow, sleeves that eclipse.
Structural Softness: Rigid forms that melt on contact.
Distorted Classics: The blazer, but make it sculpture.
Next time you step out in something that changes your outline, pause. What is this shape demanding of the room? What are you ready to give it?
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