You write "fashion" but it reads "Carhartt WIP"

When Miu Miu took social media by storm with its FW23 show during the closing day of the last Paris Fashion Week, the first comparison many people made was with Carhartt WIP: those hyper-structured zip-up hoodies and the biscuit-colored jacket with the black collar, the earth-toned workwear-inspired fabrics reminded many of the Detroit and Light Lux jackets of the iconic brand. This would have remained in the realm of pure reference knowing how popular the brand, are these days - but Miu Miu's quote is not an isolated case. Flash forward to last week, when Balenciaga unveiled its FW23 collection titled Fitting Rooms in which we see a jacket with four pockets and a square logo on the left breast pocket that is vaguely reminiscent of the brand's Michigan model. Starting to search and dig through looks from different runway shows, one falls down the proverbial rabbit hole: the famous Double Knee pants appeared on the runway at Givenchy and recently in Loewe's store (they were not in the show); also in Loewe's SS23 collection, however, we see ultra-luxury versions of the Car-Lux jackets and the Cord Rugy Polo; the denim Chore Jacket, on the other hand, appears replicated at both Alexander McQueen and Gucci; reworkings of the Detroit and Michigan jackets, on the other hand, appeared in Burberry's last show and Wooyoungmi's show; in Louis Vuitton's Pre-Fall 2023, on the other hand, a jacket halfway between Carhartt WIP's Tristan and Monterey models appeared; a shirt closely resembles the Salinac model; while at Kenzo the Pip dungarees and the Windbreaker Pullover had appeared. This is without mentioning brands such as Marni, Junya Watanabe, and Sacai who have all collaborated directly with Carhartt WIP for their most recent collections.

Miu Miu FW23 vs. Detroit Jacket

Miu Miu FW23 vs. Arling Jacket

Miu Miu FW23 vs. Light Lux Jacket

Gucci SS23 vs. Denim Chore Jacket

Givenchy FW23 vs. Black Double Knee Pants

Alexander McQueen FW23 vs. OG Denim Chore Coat

Burberry FW23 vs. Lazurite Michigan Coat

Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2023 vs. Dark Blue Michigan Coat

Kenzo FW23 vs. Bib Overall

Kenzo FW23 vs. Windbreaker Pullover

Loewe SS23 vs. L/S Cord Rugby Polo

Louis Vuitton Pre-Fall 2023 vs. Monterey Shirt Jacket

Louis Vuitton Pre-Fall 2023 vs. Tristan Shirt Jac

Rhude FW23 vs. Dusty Brown Double Knee Pants

Sacai FW23 vs. Michigan Coat

Junya Watanabe FW23 vs. Idaho Jacket

Wooyoungmi FW23 vs. Detroit Jacket

We are clearly talking about inspiration and not plagiarism both because Carhartt WIP's designs are the most iconic in a workwear repertoire made up of classic silhouettes that all resemble each other, and because each of the pieces just mentioned is quite distant from its reference models even if some specific details (pocket layouts, square logos on the left, black or contrasting collars, the use of tobacco color) betray their kinship. More than anything else, this huge number of quotes and references to Carhartt WIP speaks more to the long-lasting success of the brand than to the lack of creativity of luxury designers. Since many brands have sales targets to meet, then, it is quite normal to create singular reinterpretations of best-selling pieces which is also why so many luxury brands constantly remake new versions of Nike's Air Force 1s, Converse Chuck Taylors or Vans. Nonetheless, the many appearances of silhouettes that can be associated with Carhartt WIP's show how the thirst for workwear is as much present for the cool kids who appear on pages like @uniformdisplay as it is for the world's wealthiest clientele. Now, this thirst has never really been quenched, but in recent times it seems to have increased in ways dissimilar to the spread of classic micro-trends born and dead in three months. So what's going on? The operation that brands seem to want to do, in fact, is not so much a "taking" from the repertoire of a style that is in vogue this year, but seems more like the elevation of individual classic pieces operated through work on materials and proportions. Beginning with the blank canvas of workwear archetypes, which in themselves constitute a complete wardrobe, new semantic nuances are created by shortening the hem by an inch, changing stiff cotton for velvet or cashmere. This Carhartt-ization of fashion has all the aspects of a new and more pliant formality.

At this point it is worth closing our reflection by talking about how workwear has evolved into a post-streetwear world. Gone is the craze for the decorativism that dominated streetwear, with its increasingly intense colorways, bright logos and prints, and statements, what has remained intact has been the function and comfort of those clothes that, suitably reinterpreted, have all the numbers to constitute new classics. Among the many brands that have arisen in the shadow of Virgil Abloh and then fallen back into the shadows as fashions turn, it has been the big workwear brands that have held up best since their product needs no evolution, represents in a sense both an identity alternative to anonymous Zara jeans and a done-and-done reinterpretation of that sense of "new classic." In other words, in the post-streetwear era brands like Carhartt WIP and Dickies have gone from being a side phenomenon of the democratic fashion boom to an integral part of a lingua franca that audiences, especially younger audiences, can appreciate at every income level, at every latitude, and especially at every shade of taste-there are those who buy their Detroit in-store, those who go in search of the Made in USA archival piece, those who want distressing, and so on. Workwear is not a trend to be ridden but a platform on which to build - and it has already proven to be quite an interesting stimulus for the fashion industry, which has already begun to rework its cornerstones.