Fashion is an eternal cycle of renewal, shaped by our obsessions. Paris, September 2011: the iconic pleated skirt makes its comeback on the catwalk of the Fashion Week. For the spring-summer 2012 season, the pleats lose their rigidity and instead sculpt fluid and lucid silhouettes. So antique chic! High-waisted with retro print accompanied by a graphic vest by Balenciaga, in two-tone leather and belted by Céline, or a whole Grecian pleated ensemble in orange, echoing Godward’s painting Nerissa, by Hermès.
Symbol of protection and fertility, pleats were first used in Ancient Egypt to frame the body and thus protect it from evil sprits. Then in Ancient Greece, pleats surfaced in the form of the column: the phallus, the pillar of society, the manifestation of power! The use of pleats in garments was therefore by no means insignificant; time after time, pleats remind us of their symbolic roots in ancient times.
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