A brief history of angel wings in fashion

Bianca Censori, spotted on the streets of Los Angeles with a pair of angel wings and her controversial new husband on her arm, is the spokesperson for a trend that is inspiring a revival with celestial colours from Heaven by Marc Jacobs to the eagerly awaited return to the Victoria Secret catwalk. Angel wings are not only a carnival accessory and a Tumblr girl fetish, but have also fired the imagination of fashion designers, who have repeatedly harnessed the celestial appeal of the feathered accessory with sculptural creations and scenographic dresses. At the same time, video clips by the most unexpected artists have embraced the angelic appeal of the feathered dress: from Kanye West's wife to Kurt Cobain, via Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet, Hunter Schafer in Euphoria and Kety Perry in Versace for the Met Gala with the theme Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Here is a brief digression on the tangible legacy of the putti in fashion.

Alexander McQueen 1999

Dior 2006

Bianca Censori

Heaven by Marc Jacobs

Katy Perry in Versace

Alexander McQueen 1999

Mugler 1984

Heaven by Marc Jacobs Fall22

Dior 2006

Romeo + Juliet

In a 1998 interview for the Rolling Stones, Fiona Apple told the story of the two tattoos she got on her back: The top half said "kin", the term she and David Blaine, an American illusionist, used to describe their relationship; the other was an acronym, FHW. Two of them were the phrases Fiona wrote everywhere at school. One was 'To Be Free', the other - FHW - 'Fiona Has Wings'. The singer kept getting lost in this teenage daydream: she would dream of entering a church, walking down the aisle and kneeling at the altar while long wings sprouted from under her clothes until they snapped. Then she would fly away triumphantly and all those who had mocked her in those years and made her feel false would look at her in admiration and utter the same three words in chorus: 'Fiona Has Wings'. Apart from the tattoo, this image became reality in 1997 when the artist released Angel, a cover version of the famous Jimi Hendrix song. In the video clip for the song, Apple wore a pair of white wings to enhance her simple ensemble of jeans and a T-shirt. Five years earlier, Kurt Cobain had worn a very similar outfit in Seattle. It was 1993, the same year that Nirvana's third album In Utero was released, and the band's frontman had captivated the audience at a live performance in the grunge capital of America. On a cover version of Lithium, the angel wings did not fit the decadent atmosphere of the show, but the song's lyrics were a fitting hymn to the kingdom of heaven: 'Light my candles in a daze Cause I have found God'. In the 1990s, the accessory became a symbol of the grunge aesthetic, a stark but striking contrast between the grungy looks of the genre's most iconic singers and a transcendence in which no one seemed to recognise themselves.

Bianca Censori

Euphoria

Kurt Cobain

Fiona Apple

In the fashion world, Thierry Mugler was one of the first to experiment with celestial silhouettes on the catwalk: in 1984, a model with golden wings paraded in a serene white dress with cherubs in tow; in 1999, Alexander McQueen used the malleability of wood to create amazing wings in a truly wearable sculpture; and in 2006, it was John Galliano's turn to interpret the trend for Maison Dior in a flood of tulle and organza. But the primacy of wings in the collective imagination goes to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, the legendary catwalk on which the most famous supermodels, from Adriana Lima to Gisele Buendchen, have paraded as "angels" and which, after stopping in 2018, will soon return with an inclusive and contemporary cast. The cool kids, on the other hand, are wearing Heaven by Marc Jacobs' version, designed in collaboration with Anna Sui and available for $570 on the brand's e-commerce. This summer, the coolest accessory is not a bag but a pair of wings.