In his book Crying, Tom Lutz notes that even tears of sadness come in many forms: tears of melancholy; tears of lamentation. They can be spontaneous and sincere or ginned up, either to produce an effect on others or an effect on oneself, as the act of crying can be cathartic, self-indulgent, masochistic or, in its own way, pleasurable. St Augustine asks God, in his Confessions, “Why tears are so sweet to the sorrowful?” Lutz supplies several answers, including that of Romanian writer EM Cioran, for whom “crying’s ‘flame of ecstasy annihilates any kind of intellectual activity’” and who suggests that “this sublime overcoming of cognition is an aesthetic experience” and, indeed, that tears “are an art form in themselves”, like music. Or like fashion.
“I wanted clothes that cry,” said noted philosopher/Alaïa creative director Pieter Mulier of his spring/summer 2026 collection and, as is also the case when I read Heidegger, I have no idea what he’s saying, but I kind of know what he means. The words that come to mind vis-à-vis the Alaïa show, with its copious fringe, swishy draping and cocoon knits, are movement and tactility – qualities of the body. There was similar body-likeness in the leather and feathers at Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Balenciaga debut, the fibreglass knits at Louise Trotter’s Bottega Veneta debut, the sculpted scuba dresses at Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s Loewe debut, and the sexy slashes throughout Simone Bellotti’s Jil Sander debut. Debuts, debuts, but the real news was this obsession with sensation. Feel! Feel! Our ability to feel – literally, to grapple tangibly with the world – helps to distinguish us from AI, as do tears and other human effluvia. It may learn to
think like us, but AI cannot move, cannot touch, cannot cry. I suspect fashion is getting more emotional these days because the emotional – instinctive, intimate, unpredictable – is the opposite of the algorithmic. It’s like everyone’s fighting their way out of this endless, samey feedback loop. Or – not everyone.
I like to joke with my friend, the designer Batsheva Hay, that her brand’s tagline should be, “Baffle the algorithm, wear Batsheva”. She does completely her own thing. The same phrase crossed my mind when looking at the latest Chopova Lowena collection, which used cheerleaders as the jumping off point for an exorcism of adolescent demons. “A rallying cry for the weird girls everywhere,” said Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena – and I can imagine young women, all over the world, clicking through images of that raucous, irreducibly singular show and feeling seen.
Maybe they would cry. That’s the reaction I had years ago to the Meadham Kirchhoff spring/summer 2012 show at London Fashion Week. I don’t recall specific items, or looks, just the general sense that all my riot grrrl fury at society’s expectations of women had exploded onto the catwalk in a cloud of confetti. I’d been holding in that rage for a long time and I was tired. When the opportunity came, I cried tears of joy.