Most people will know from studying history at school or watching Keira Knightley faint off a cliffside and miraculously survive unscathed in Pirates of the Caribbean that, for centuries, in the Western world, women have endured the expectation of wearing tight-fitting corsets. Women have had many years of wearing uncomfortable clothing, whether layers of heavy, stiff petticoats akin to carrying weights around all day, or gargantuan crinoline skirts that had a nasty habit of getting caught in doorways and even carriage wheels. 

In 1824, Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi captured the discomfort fashion presented at the time by having the concept of fashion smugly list its abilities in his Dialogue Between Fashion and Death.

“Crippling people with tight shoes; cutting off their breath and making their eyes pop out because of their tight corsets…I persuade and constrain all genteel men to endure a thousand hardships and a thousand discomforts every day, and frequently pain and torment, and some even die gloriously for the love they bear me”.

Even then, it took almost another century for comfort in women’s clothing to be considered. In fact, it wasn’t until 1934

that Levi Strauss & Co. introduced the first pair of jeans made exclusively for women.

It still took around 30 years for them to become a mainstream fashion choice.

However, unlike corsets that provoke popping eyeballs, what we see on catwalks isn’t necessarily intended to be worn every day, or even at all.

However, not all designers prescribe to the notion that fashion is art.

In an interview with New York Magazine, Miuccia Prada was quoted: 

“Art is meant to express ideas and vision. My job is to sell. And I really like it”.

Prada isn’t the only designer who follows this code. American fashion houses Calvin Klein and Michael Kors have long followed the notion that their collections should be 100%

ready-to-wear.

For the business-minded, this approach makes total sense as running

a fashion brand takes money, and no brand would be able to survive

or function if they were only creating unwearable clothing.

Comme des Garcons SS97 via Wikipedia Commons

COMME des GARÇONS is a commendable example of a brand that proactively challenges the established ideas of clothing through avant-garde creations, but also caters to the everyday consumer and their own financial needs by conceptualising different lines.

These include collections such as COMME des GARÇONS PLAY (which mainly consists of T-shirts) and collaborations with more financially accessible brands such as Converse.

Rei Kawakubo, the creative mastermind behind COMME des GARÇONS, has previously divulged her views towards clothing, “Personally, I don’t care about function at all. When I hear, ‘Where could you wear that?’ or ‘It’s not very wearable,’ or ‘Who would wear that?’….to me, it’s just a sign that someone missed the point.”

Kawakubo's penchant for creative expression can be seen in pivotal collections for the brand, such as the SS97 collection, which is often referred to as “lumps and bumps.”

The collection presented pieces made of colourful silks, gingham prints and jerseys being stuffed with filler and padding at the hips, waist, stomach, shoulders and behind to create an array of different silhouettes that challenged conventional ideas around the bodies that clothes are worn by.

 Twenty years later, the designers' AW17 concoctions continued to raise questions around wearability and silhouette as models walked out on the runway in large bulbous structures that lacked armholes and resembled all sorts, from the

Venus de Milo to insulation materials that you may find in your loft.

The future of unwearable clothing seems to be shifting in some respects as we see designer items achieve virality online. Perhaps this is due to the interplay between fashion shows becoming more digitally accessible and brands searching for new ways to shock audiences.

Balenciaga is known for selling clothing and accessories that one might not expect to find at a high-fashion house. One example of this is the $1800 clutch bag designed to look like a crumpled, nearly empty Lay’s chips packet. In reality, the bag was made of calfskin, but the perceived silliness of a fashion product made to look like crumpled-up food waste had not only those within fashion media talking, but mainstream media was also commenting on this crisp-inspired concoction.

Since Glenn Martens took the helm of Diesel, one of the most notable designs to come from his tenure has been a distressed skirt so short it would make the Miu Miu micro skirt blush. The skirt became a hotly debated topic after content creator Adrienne Reau posted a review on TikTok after she purchased it and complained about the lack of practicality of the skirt. Viewers had mixed responses, some believing that a $1000 item of clothing should be wearable, while the likes of hotly followed Instagram account Diet Prada said, “Clothes are meant to be worn, but how practical they are once on the body isn’t necessarily what constitutes great fashion,” when discussing the skirt in question.

Unwearable fashion takes this logic to the extreme, demonstrating that aesthetic expression and distinction are more important than practical function. Simmel's theory suggests that impractical clothing, such as the Alaïa design that completely restricts all arm movement, reinforces the idea that those who can afford the clothing piece’s life are so elevated that they don’t need to concern themselves with practical realities.

Unwearable clothing or concept clothing may seem unnecessary to some, but like a painting or sculpture in a museum, they are made to communicate a story, emotion or vision. These garments challenge the traditional ideas of clothing and transcend many people’s ideas of fashion, while armadillo heels and crisp packet handbags may not be something everyone wants to wear; they create intrigue, which, in turn, creates customers for a brand's slightly more wearable offerings.

Fashion isn’t always supposed to be comfortable. What we choose to wear is often the way we want to present ourselves to others and be perceived.

If it were all about comfort, everyone would be in jumpers and jogging bottoms 24/7. Avant-garde garments act as a catalyst for innovation, future trends and social commentary. Museums and galleries now display fashion with as much consideration as they do art. Take the yearly Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions that inspire the renowned Met Gala, for example. Unwearable clothing may seem ridiculous at first glance, but as Sir Francis Bacon once said, “Fashion is only the attempt to realise art in living forms and social intercourse.” It’s more than just what we wear; it’s what story the garment is telling.

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