There’s a quantification that circulates around online fashion circuits from time to time: if you know fashion well, you can tell whether a male fashion designer loves women… or not. It’s a creative morality test of sorts, something to gauge not their talent, but their feelings- one that many pass with flying colors. Mugler? Obviously a fan of women. Dior? Compared women to flowers, that’s about all you need to know. All fantastic- there’s something special about men who design clothes with the intention to honor the lives and bodies of the women and femme people who wear them. But what do women have to say about women? 

In the March issue of Vogue, Anna Wintour’s letter from the editor shone a light on female designers, and her desire to uplift their contributions to fashion, saying, “You may have noticed that there have been quite a few creative directorships going to men recently. Good for them– new faces are always cause for excitement, irrespective of gender. But we couldn’t help but want to celebrate the fact that women designers still comprise a vital sorority in our industry– of new thinking, creativity, mutual respect, and in many cases, genuine friendship.”

And this, this very simple statement about the creations of women– for women– led me down a rabbit hole of thought. How important is the female gaze in fashion, and in a larger sense, media, when it comes to our consumption? Does it matter at all?

The short answer is yes, obviously. The definition of the female gaze is a quick Google search away; you’ll learn that it’s a feminist theory referring to the perspective of a female spectator, character, or director commonly utilized when discussing film because of its relationship to Laura Mulvey’s coining of the term “male gaze.”

In the last year, the world has been graced with several smash films created by women, for women. Barbie, Past Lives, Priscilla, even Saltburn. Even though the origin of the female gaze begins in this realm, it doesn’t have to be limited to the cinema. 

The fashion shows of February and March were cause for much celebration, again irrespective of gender- there were successes across the board, many of which felt like life was being breathed back into fashion. But to miss the response from women to the many successful female-led collections would be remiss, even mindless.

Chemena Kamali’s debut at the helm of Chloé was widely regarded as the most electric show of the season, no doubt partly due to her commitment to the vision of founder, Gaby Aghion. Kamali’s runway was swathed with a playful sense of femininity that exuded not only lightheartedness, but a certain sense of power- not so different from how she reflected on the house’s history of “wanting to liberate women from the stiffness of couture,” letting the wearers of their clothes be free, and still feel beautifully spontaneous.

Prada womenswear, too, was well-received in a way that reflects the truth of the female gaze and femininity in general: that there is no one way to be a woman, only notions and perspectives and contradictions to be enjoyed or challenged, tossed or repeated. This concept, seen in the FW24 collection in the form of bows, letterman jackets, and shaped caps, is nothing new to Miuccia Prada who famously said, “Ugly is attractive, ugly is exciting. Maybe because it is newer. The investigation of ugliness is, to me, more interesting than the bourgeois idea of beauty.”

Maybe you’re still unconvinced of the importance of women paving the way as creative directors, saturating their collections with a distinctly female perspective. And to that, I say look no further than a TedTalk. A TedXVienna article about the female gaze breaks the “why” down to its simplest form: “Media creates reality. Reality creates media. Representation is a powerful tool that has the power to change people’s perspective, to represent or to invisibilize.”

True for movies, as stated, of course. But also true across all art forms, fashion included. Questions like “How is the lived experience of this character depicted?” can easily be applied to models strutting down a runway, wearing clothes designed by women who can infuse into them an understanding of what life as a woman is like, what a woman wearing clothes wants, needs, and expects from them on her body.

There are an infinite amount of ways to be a woman- the range of what we want from fashion is as wide as the seas we must travel across to see the runways- but perhaps most important for us all is to continue seeing ourselves in the clothes presented to us. To see, that above all else, the complexity of a woman’s inner world is not only important, but endlessly valuable.