The rewoke flapper: womenswear’s important trend for Fall

The Fall 2018 runway reports have focused heavily on the startling proportions of the 80s revival: the oversize shoulders, taffeta rosettes in shades of cerise, the brash animal prints. But there are other options for dressing the modern warrior woman set on smashing apart patriarchal hypocrisies. There’s the roomy neon-trimmed citywear recalling the uniforms of the emergency services on a rescue mission. Or the frontierswoman in patchworked blanket shapes and homespun prairie dresses worn with cowboy boots. The womenswear offerings are saturated with the injustices unearthed by the MeToo movement, the attacks on Planned Parenthood, and a political agenda which many see as seeking to destroy women’s rights. But sliding into our peripheral vision as we approach dressing for fall, an example of stealth strength, enduring and inevitable, a trend without sharp corners or aggressive volume, but with a profoundly feminist core: we call her the rewoke flapper.