When Can We Get Nerdy About the Women’s Suit?
Courtesy of The Row
When Can We Get Nerdy About the Women’s Suit?
With Neelam Gill, Julie Pelipas and Daisy Knatchbull
By Akanksha Kamath
Tailoring is the art of perfection. The stitching, pattern-cutting, focus on seams, cuffs, shoulders, buttons and pockets are all part of what makes the suit-wearing experience a classical yet studious endeavor. It’s also a technical craft that has typically remained reserved for male wearers (you only have to look to London’s Savile Row for a rhetoric that perpetuates accomplished, elite men as suit connoisseurs). However, the recent staggering success of brands like The Row, Khaite and Phoebe Philo, and their minimal, refined and relaxed suit aesthetic, has brought suiting to women once again. Only this time, it looks different.
Far from its ‘50s silhouette that borrowed from the boys— quite literally with shapes that were not made keeping a woman in mind, to becoming laser-sharp focused on the feminine form in the ‘80s, to now, a time when suiting is made by women for women, the silhouette has firmly hoisted itself into a modern woman’s wardrobe and world.
From BETTTER by Julie Pelipas - an innovative system that upcyles tailoring and suiting waste from menswear into deeply thoughtful well-crafted suits for women, to Daisy Knatchbull of The Deck who decided Savile Row was where her one stop shop for a brand dedicated to suiting for women belonged, and Neelam Ahooja, an avid wearer of suits — got together to nerd-out over the cuts and collars of the perfect modern suit, in a conversation hosted by Akanksha Kamath.
From blazer constructions that adopt details from activewear and outerwear, to hidden vintage jewelry details — these women are looking at suiting with the same meticulous attention to detail as menswear looks at suiting, and in the process revolutionizing the category. Here’s how.