Shocking. Controversial. To some, even offensive.
When Christian Dior unveiled his debut collection in 1947, a new silhouette took shape. New to women’s wardrobes, (coined “New Look” by Harper Bazaar’s editor Carmel Snow) but also to what would eventually redefine femininity in modern culture, especially in the aftermath of war.
Debuting just 18 months after the Liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation, Dior’s vision stood in stark contrast to the austerity and restriction that defined wartime attire.
Though Dior is now synonymous with its timeless elegance, it’s surprising to think that at its time, it was considered deeply provocative. So much so, that in the United States, women took to protesting and resisting it as “wasteful” and “regressive.”
Why? Because it proposed something radically different. In the remnants of 1940’s wartime, where women were typically dressed in short skirts, structured shoulders and utilitarian fabrics, Dior’s collection proposed a new feminine silhouette reminiscent of late 19th century attire.
Cinched waists, exaggerated hips, full skirts that consumed fabric in a time when material had long been scarcely available. It reinstated softness over hardness, luxury over practicality, ornamentation over utility. All with the intention of returning femininity as spectacle.
In doing so, femininity became something to be seen, and therefore, something to be controlled.
Famously inspired from flowers, Dior described women themselves as such: delicate, blooming, to be adorned and admired. His silhouette’s echoed this vision. Petal-like skirts, narrow stems of cinched waists, bodies shaped into idealized forms of natural beauty.
“After women, flowers are the most divine creations,” he once said.
Femininity, in Dior’s world, became something to cultivate. To shape.
To perfect.
Credit: Christian Dior Archive
Chanel Now and Before
If Dior reintroduced femininity through structure, then Chanel redefined it through release two decades prior.
Where Dior cinched and sculpted, Chanel loosened. Coco Chanel’s vision of femininity in the 1920s rejected restriction in favor of movement. This meant jersey fabrics, straight lines, softened silhouettes that allowed the body to exist without being reshaped.
It was a quiet protest: a statement that female-identifying bodies prioritize ease and autonomy. At its time, this notion was considered radically modern.
A woman didn’t need construction to be feminine. She simply was.
Credit: William Klein via BBC
On the Spring/Summer 2026 runway, Chanel reintroduced many of its most recognizable codes: tweed, bows, soft pastels, sheer layers. But rather than presenting them as fixed or traditional, the collection felt re-contextualized; styled with a renewed sense of intention.
Set in a pink fantasy mushroom-capped wonderland, pretty pink pastels and breezy fabrics filled the room. A nod to the jersey that Chanel herself pioneered was made throughout. Drop waists and skirts echoing the liberated silhouettes celebrated of the 1920s. Chunky diamond earrings, pearl beaded garments, gold purse handles catching light. Sleekness and softness married as one.
The sense of lightness and weightlessness certainly carried (ahem, “Birds of a Feather”) — fabrics moved and breathed feely. Fluidity played across textures and tones, warm golds layered against cool pastels, adorned with plant and petal-like embellishments. Pops of black and bright red expanded the palette, intended to symbolize and reflect the multifaceted nature of femininity itself.
Post-debut, some felt it was closest to Chanel’s original vision in years. Others critiqued it for straying too far.
But perhaps that tension was the point?
What we’re seeing is not a return to Chanel’s femininity, but a reinterpretation of it. It’s self-aware, acknowledging its own history while bending it to fit a different cultural moment.
Where Chanel once fought to free the feminine, today that freedom is assumed and performed.
Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel gestures toward its origins of movement and ease, while simultaneously reframing it through exaggeration and performance.
Here, what symbolizes femininity has shifted.
Credit: Chanel Website
When Chanel shows femininity can be reinterpreted from its original codes, other designers certainly push the idea further. Expanding it, distorting it, rebelling against it, and in some cases, rejecting it altogether.
What we see and know is that femininity is not singular. So how do other fashion labels interpret it?
Schiaparelli
At Schiaparelli, femininity is outward. Sculptural gold torsos, exaggerated silhouettes and surrealist references transform the mythological body. The antithesis of softness, Schiaparelli has long been recognized for its overtness. Its design goes beyond realism, playing with mythology to encapsulate the feeling of formidableness. Its power lies in being confrontational; an unapologetic femininity that shamelessly demands, not asks, to be seen.
Credit: British Vogue
Simone Rocha
At Simone Rocha, the language of femininity shifts inward. Bows, tulle, soft baby pinks and sheer whites hold delicacy close at first glance. But Rocha nuances that meaning. Harnesses, layering, and structured volume juxtapose fragility and protection with innocence and lived experience. Her work reframes softness, where femininity is symbolized by the deeper emotion. Both felt, and seen.
Credit: Fashion United
Chopova Lowena
At Chopova Lowena, femininity fractures entirely. Drawing on Eastern European folklore, hardware and punk sensibilities, its garments resist the polished, perfectly-put-together ideal that’s held close by traditional houses. Kilts clash with metal fastenings, florals embalmed by industrial elements.
This tension goes beyond aesthetic. Eastern Europe carries its own cultural weight, marked by a history of political upheaval, labour, resilience, and a perceived hardness. Femininity resembles endurance over delicacy.
It also becomes cultural. Purposely unrefined, resistant to polish, rejecting preconceived notions of softness as default.
Credit: London Fashion Week
As we see, femininity has never been static.
It’s been cinched, released, adorned, undone, imposed, reclaimed through time. Whether from Dior’s sculpted ideal to Chanel’s liberated body, to today’s interpretations, what we call “feminine” today has always been in flux. Influenced as much by culture as by cloth.
If femininity can look like all of these things at once; power, softness, contradiction, rebellion…then what are we really naming to when we call something "‘feminine’?
Brianna Price is a brand writer and cultural commentator wielding words in London. If you enjoyed this piece, you can follow her for more cultural deep-dives on fashion.
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