The age of functional maximalism

“We should not forget that maybe not everybody only wants a camel cashmere turtleneck,” Olivier Rousteing remarked. Beyond the cyclical nature of fashion, Rousteing’s observation captured a mash-up of trends that has been solidifying into a durable aesthetic.

This aesthetic is functional maximalism, and is the outcome of the post-gorpcore, post-genre fashion, changed urban lifestyles, our mass embrace of nature, TikTok creative influences, and a pushback to the omnipresent minimalism. Functional maximalism is fashion’s expansion of its own aesthetic vocabulary, with tokens from sports, outdoors, gender ... See more