Earlier today, Chemena Kamali revealed her sophomore runway collection for Chloé. After single-handedly reviving the early aughts boho-trend with her gauzy tiered dresses that have since been spotted on everyone from Sienna Miller to Sydney Sweeney and Maya Rudolph. What must-have item would she introduce to our wardrobes this season? You may be surprised to learn that the answer is… Victorian undergarments.
The spring show opened with a model in a delicate sheer embroidered white blouse worn with matching pantaloons, tied with a drawstring around the waist and ballooning around the legs before tapering back into another drawstring at the ankle. There were also versions done in cotton voile with lace insets and cropped at the knee, and swishier ones in silk with lace edges. Kamali also showed tiny bloomer shorts that were an update on the balloon skirt style that’s currently making the trend rounds with the younger generation.
Underwear as outerwear is nothing new on the runway, but Kamali’s 19th-century take cheekily reinvents the concept in a way that feels more modern and personal. Pantaloons, or pantalettes as they’re also known, were worn underneath crinolines and hoop skirts in the early 19th century; women wore long styles to protect their modesty should a sudden gust of wind reveal their legs, while young girls wore a version that was cropped at the knee and was meant to peek out from underneath their dresses. Kamali often cites the ’70s as a point of inspiration, when the bohemian trend as we’ve come to know it now first emerged. At that time, designers were likely referencing and reappropriating the fashions of the 19th century. Karl Lagerfeld, who was the creative director at Chloé from the ’60s to the ’90s, was inspired by the era a few times, showing cotton poplin pantaloons in 1976, and underpinning-inspired styles in 1994.
“I know the archives inside out, I don’t have this objective view on Chloé; it’s a very personal connection to it,” Kamali explained on the Vogue podcast earlier this month. “I don’t think that I need to sort of force anything out of me. It’s something that comes quite naturally.” Although bloomers have been a simmering trend for a while—they’ve become a wardrobe staple for a particular kind of online/hyper fashionable young woman, and were also a point of interest in Prada’s fall 2024 collection—they make sense at Chloé as an extension of Kamali’s own approach to dressing. The designer is an avid vintage shopper (her collection of vintage blouses has quickly become fashion lore), and it’s not a stretch to imagine her coming across vintage pantalettes during her shopping excursions, and thinking “Oh I could just wear these as pants.” And if there’s one lesson to take away from the spring 2025 collections so far, is that now is the time for a little eccentricity and some personality. Kamali knows that girls just wanna have fun.
