Surrealist fashion is making a comeback

Designers are tapping into otherworldly elements to play with reality

At this year’s Vanity Fair Oscar party, actor Julia Fox broke the Internet when she wore a floor-length leather dress with a statement neckline buoyed by a hand gripping her neck and a bag made of human hair. 

“I’m going to get roasted for this tomorrow. The comments are going to be ridiculous. But you know what, I’m having fun, and that’s all that matters,” she said on the red carpet. Call it fashion or art, provocation has always been a game for fashion, and surrealism has propelled it to stay relevant. 

Whether it’s the shoe hat that Elsa Schiaparelli created in collaboration with the famed artist Salvador Dali in 1937 (both of whom remain icons of surrealism), or Kylie Jenner in a vintage fall 2007 Comme des Garçons skirt and jacket with 3D hands that grasped her hips and chest, the fashion industry’s engagement with surrealism has, time and again, emerged during times of economic or cultural hardships. This phenomenon then acts as a social catalyst to help escape the atrocities on humankind, like in the late 1930s and early 40s during the Second World War, and now, following the COVID-19 pandemic. We take a look at how surrealism found its way into millennial and Gen Z wardrobes.

Surrealism in fashion

The 20th-Century art movement saw the subconscious mind juxtaposed with reality. Over the last few years, we’ve seen fashion’s evolution from comfy loungewear during the pandemic to its hyper-imaginative form as we emerged into a post-pandemic world. This year, we’ve witnessed Loewe’s take on surrealism with its egg stilettos, which creative director Jonathan Anderson debuted at Paris Fashion Week for the brand’s spring/summer 2022 collection and Moschino’s fall/winter 2022 collection. For the latter, models on the runway wore grandfather clocks and crystal-dripped chandeliers.

Back home, designers like Akshat Bansal (Bloni), Amit Aggarwal and Gaurav Gupta bend reality through the silhouettes and forms of their garments. You’ll also see flights of other-worldliness in the statement jewellery pieces of Outhouse. “Our pieces are forms of wearable art, and each piece has a distinctive narrative that captures our creative expression and embraces the idea of saying ‘no’ to being normal,” says Kaabia and Sasha Grewal, founders and designers of Outhouse jewellery, who cite surrealist artists like Salvador Dali, Man Ray and René Magritte as inspiration. “We believe our creativity lies in our subconscious mind where we can live and express through our work in a parallel world. Making our minds escape into a world that doesn’t exist is all the more exciting when we develop our motifs or even ideate our collections,” they add.

Like Elsa Schiaparelli, who infused surrealism through trompe l’oeil effects, Shalini Jaikaria and Paras Bairoliya of Geisha Designs view fashion as a way to allow their imaginations to expand beyond its limits. “The purpose of surrealism is to break convention and expectations and create room for experimentation and excitement,” say Jaikaria and Bairoliya, whose recent fall/winter collection featured a 3D bloom of flowers and petals, in the form of a giant rosette, on the bodice of the dress. “The idea is to pick up things from the mundane and to create a dream-like distant reality,” shares the designer duo. 

Art versus commerce

In theory, the marriage of art and fashion may be the perfect setup to showcase a designer’s creativity while grabbing eyeballs. But how successful can this union be when selling an idea? Unless you’re Bella Hadid dressed up in Schiaparelli’s form-fitting black dress, which featured a gold-dipped necklace in the shape of the lung’s bronchi passageway for a red carpet event or is dressing up for a costume party, the commercialisation of surrealist fashion is questionable.

Designer Rimzim Dadu, synonymous with metallic sarees, points out that while artistry and innovation exude from within, its interpretation makes it commercial. “The symphony of art with its approximation is vital to any artist’s life. While my clothes represent the exploration of mixed media, design aesthetics and curation, I would say it’s for the beholder to traverse through and identify their interpretations of my citations,” says Dadu.

Like Dadu, for Jaikaria and Bairoliya, their over-the-top couture collections are a way to impart their ideas, however impractical they may be, and then translate them into something wearable to suit their clients’ imagination. “On the runway showcase, the focus is to portray the artist in us, to share a story and ethos of the collection. Hence, its interpretation is conceptualised in totality and purity and not directly linked to commerce to be derived from it. These same pieces and ensemble, at a later date, form a source of a starting point for the atelier to delve further upon and re-work according to their client or market-specific photos to be saleable,” says the designer duo.

Accessories are an easy way to sell surrealism. Take Loewe’s inflated sunglasses, for example, that look like pouty lips that are having a moment in fashion, or the angel and demon ceramic bag by artist and designer Naomi Gilon that left the Internet stunned. For the Grewals, the boundaries between fashion and art are quite blurry, making selling their work commercially easy. “We proudly say, ‘you are looking at art pieces.’ Art can be commerce, but commerce can never be art. So there is value in unique pieces, which can be passed on from one generation to the other, as it stands for something beautiful, special and exquisite.” The duo’s recently launched ‘Drip Oh’ mixes the ‘Oh’ monogram by converting it into wearable art with a dose of dopamine. “The pieces are well-balanced – individualistic and deliver joyful expressions,” says the duo.

The functionality of art in fashion

The practicality and functionality of couture are often questionable. It may not be practical to wear Jean Paul Gaultier’s cone bra corset to a meeting or carry a severed head as an accessory, as Gucci proposed, without scaring off a few people. But to be commercially viable, art has to have some form of functionality.

Dadu’s recent collaboration with FabAlley, a capsule comprising 30 party-ready separates and sets, showcasing a practical approach to avant-garde silhouettes. “Avant-garde or surrealistic fashion encompasses an array of elements that derives elements into a simplistic yet realistic form, which is what this collaboration was about. My vision, style and ethos, blended with FabAlley’s unique selling point, brought about this collection. I create all my designs, whether surrealistic or simplistic, keeping functionality and comfort in mind while still delivering innovative design processes,” she says. In her collection for FabAlley, Dadu tones down her signature clean cuts, sharp silhouettes and statement textured surfaces to wearability in the form of dresses, mini-skirts and co-ord sets, in satin and lycra.

For the Grewals, too, the answer lies in maintaining a balance. “Great design strikes a balance between functionality and aspiration, and surrealistic design brings ideas from our subconscious mind to reality. We create art that can be worn and flaunted through the expressions of glamour and grunge,” they say. “We look to translate surreal motifs into statement-making wearables,” they add. As designers and couturiers, Jaikaria and Bairoliya believe surrealism allows us to rethink daily life and translate it into existence. “All the surrealistic fashion we see, both on and off the runways, pushes the idea of what everyday fashion can and should be. It is also a medium for self-expression, considering androgynous fashion, which challenges the order of the sex and is indifferent to the differences between the sexes; people dress according to their personalities and try to create a reality where masculine and feminine design factors coexist. In short, surrealism makes self-expression endless, which is why it’s practical,” they conclude.

Also Read: Rahul Mishra’s latest couture collection is an exaggeration of the human body

Also Read: What is the relevance of India Couture Week? Turns out, a lot

Also Read: Amit Aggarwal on his design journey, inspiration and latest couture collection