The viral mob wife aesthetic, which takes its cues from the ostentatious style of fictional mafia characters in television and film, is fueling a demand for furry textures, and designers and retailers have taken note.
“You couldn’t escape the importance of texture,” this season, said Linda Fargo, director of women’s fashion at Bergdorf Goodman, highlighting the prominence of “shaggy robe coats, just-out-of-the-rain faux furs, shearling and more shearling [and] fuzzy-wuzzy accessories.”
Jil Sander might be known for minimalism, but this season, co-designers Luke and Lucy Meier took a tactile approach with cocooning fringed knits that were an innovative take on faux fur. They “spoke volumes,” wrote WWD’s Sandra Salibian, who felt they “were an invitation to stretch out a hand.”
At Acne Studios, Jonny Johansson contended with the frigid weather in his native Sweden, opening the show with a yeti-style jacket in Icelandic shearling. “But it’s hard to escape the bare-skinned trend sweeping the fall runways, “so he styled it with nothing underneath,” wrote Paris bureau chief Joelle Diderich.
WWD’s Booth Moore observed Michael Kors’ “outerwear was designed to make an entrance,” as well with Mongolian shearling puffball coats in pastel colors worn over languid slips.
The fun fur continued at Rabanne with a younger take on the trend. “Slouchy, comfy, warm and tender,” were all words Julien Dossena used to describe the feeling he was after at Rabanne, trading in some of the house’s cold metal mesh for statement furs.
Courrèges’ Nicolas Di Felice was searching “for connection and touch in a world filled with strife,” wrote Diderich, who called his bra tops and skirts with a single front pocket on the crotch worn underneath giant fur coats a form of “sexual healing.”
