Anti-fashion: the irony in trying to look effortless – Culted

Anti-fashion is everywhere rn. Brands like Our Legacy and Balenciaga that just get it have got everyone trying to look as nonchalant as the models in their campaigns. We all want to act like we don’t follow the hottest trends, and instead have an innate “personal style” – FashionTok’s favourite phrase – but trying your hardest to look effortless sounds a bit ironic, doesn’t it.

It’s understandable though. There’s a mysterious appeal about these brands with their bold designs and interesting silhouettes that still stay minimal enough to fit into any of our wardrobes and show off our personal style. By rejecting trends and wearing things that aren’t widely “fashionable,” you’re basically standing out by being different. That’s what makes people shift their focus from the clothes someone wears to the person themselves and ask themselves, “why have they put that sh*t on?”

But what even is anti-fashion? To put it simply, “anti-fashion” is a style that rejects what’s typically known to be fashionable. Think of ’70s hippies, ’90s grunge, or even 2010s normcore – it’s not a specific look but more of a “f*ck that” attitude towards the fashion zeitgeist that makes your style completely independent to what’s fashionable. 

Looking back, you can find anti-fashion in counterculture and grunge subcultures, but also in times and places where dressing a certain way was a necessity rather than a choice. Times when it wasn’t about copping garms for the aesthetic but, instead, buying things like waffle knits to keep warm by layering it in any way possible for survival. 

The idea of fashion as purely functional has been explored in high fashion – take a look at Raf Simons’ infamous ‘Riot Riot Riot’ collection from Autumn/Winter 2001. He found inspiration in the Austrian youth during the winter, using the heavy layering of oversized jackets and sweaters at Viennese markets as a reference for the collection. It could just be that unconventional styling is born out of being in typically “unfashionable” places. 

This carelessness on how you style yourself really embodies the anti-fashion attitude because looking like you don’t care is what people really care about. Being this nonchalant comes from within, though, and you need a pretty high level of confidence and personal identity to pull it off – it’s not something that you can find or get from the clothes themselves. 

You can also find this “IDGAF,” anti-fashion attitude in the work of “The Big Three” from Japan: Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake. They strayed as far away as they could from the colourful glamour and body accentuation of that era, creating all-black, asymmetrical and androgynous clothes. They put a middle finger up to the West’s “fashionable” sexualisation of the body to make garms that obscured the body to promote their interesting tailoring techniques. This is what anti-fashion’s about, putting the focus on the person and who they are rather than their body. 

This recurring idea that the anti-fashion attitude is about the wearer is really important because it’s about not giving a f*ck about what you’re wearing and putting that sh*t on because it makes you feel comfortable. You need to be so immersed in your life that clothes become an extension of your skin, representing how you want to be in the world rather than how you want to look in it. You can’t really try to dress “anti-fashion.” You either get it or you don’t.

Living in a capitalist fashion world that has made nonchalant and effortless styling into a trend is ironic in itself. Instead of looking for clothing that channels “anti-fashion”, you’re better off saving your money and working on being truly comfortable in the clothes you already own. We live in a surveillance society, so people will look at you no matter what you wear. By breaking free of what’s seen as traditionally fashionable and just putting on whatever’s closest to you, maybe then you’ll feel comfortable and confident enough to seamlessly be one with your clothes and finally reach anti-fashion’s nirvana. 

Featured image via Raf Simons©

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