Womanly styles on the catwalk at Vuitton

This spring, the autumn/winter catwalks were awash with nipped in waists, modest-length full skirts and shapely legs set off by an elegant midi-heel. This restraint, after the outlandish  and androgynous  style led by Balmain, has been welcomed as a return to female-friendly-fashion, as opposed to the looks so favoured by male designers that only look good on waifish, young Eastern Europeans.

The glossies are heralding the return of the ‘woman’; Louis Vuitton famously used older and curvier (although one should be careful not to qualify them as ‘curvy’, as they are still minuscule compared to what you see on the street) models such as Elle Macpherson and Bar Rafaeli for their catwalk show back in March. It seems that fashion is leading the charge in a return to conventional modes of femininity, as presented through the shapes and styles that are so à la mode. The appeal of the hourglass woman has even been sponsored by the British Government, with equalities minister Lynne Featherstone advocating the figure of Mad Men star Christina Hendricks as a healthy one to aspire to.

The Renaissance Woman

However, it’s not just fashion that depicts this shift back to a more traditional idea of femininity. Craft and cookery classes are also enjoying something of a renaissance among the younger female generation – perhaps because they have never felt that such pastimes were a symptom of oppressive patriarchy. Nigella Lawson is famed for reimagining the domestic goddess for the noughties, and Cath Kidston kitsch has never been more fashionable. The ideal perpetuated here is an image of motherly loveliness that is confined to the kitchen. Perfect fodder for sexist maxims that women enjoy cooking, cleaning and sewing, it would seem. What is more likely, however, is that it’s part of the make do and mend movement that always gains popularity in hard financial times. But it is disconcerting that it is wrapped up in such a pretty package.

The Woman Reborn

The most interesting political point regarding this desire to hark back to the image of the fifties housewife is handily summed up by Emma Thompson’s recent assertion that having it all (that is to say managing a career and a family) is a “revolting concept”. Since the power woman of the eighties, women have been told they can have what they want, when they want – the world is theirs for the taking. Thanks to the sexual revolution of the sixties and the advent of the contraceptive pill, women were suddenly able to control their own reproductive destiny and so the ‘career woman’ was born. Pressures have mounted though, and many women have indeed found it difficult to manage both public and private spheres of their lives. But does this mean they shouldn’t try? And that society shouldn’t try and help them? After all, we have only so far lived in a world set up according to male rules and timetables. Perhaps a change to a gynocracy is what is truly needed for women to achieve full equality of opportunity.

What can we attribute this potentially worrying trend to then? Is it merely a reversal of the ‘naughty noughties’, defined as they were by attention-seeking starlets flashing the flesh, lad mag photo shoots and the rise of the celebrity sex tape? A call for more restraint and conservatism (with a small ‘c’)?

Goodbye to the naughty noughties?

Perhaps it is another social consequence of the economic doom and gloom. In times of turmoil, people look to the past with rose-tinted glasses; gender roles were clearer then, men had the role of breadwinner and women had to keep house. As unemployment is still a problem throughout Europe, househusbands are becoming more common – cultivating an image of traditional femininity could be a reassuring presence to those with conventional ideas of family. Or is it something simpler still? It is well known that trends are cyclical in nature – forty years after women’s lib, maybe it’s just time for females to model themselves on their grandmothers; at least they have the choice whether to adhere to other restrictive expectations this time, rather than being obliged to follow them.

The Fairer Sex

In truth, all of the above are probably contributing factors to this trend of the ultra-feminine. What is important to remember is that despite appearances, it is unlikely that this shift will provoke a drastic reversal in societal norms. What is the most likely conclusion though is that the twenty- and thirtysomethings who are spearheading this revival in all things girly have never needed to consider the implications of it. Young women of 2010 are accustomed to more freedom and rights than their mother could have even wished for (despite the pay gap, abortion rights and rape still being important feminist issues). Unlike the fifties housewife they dress as, Western women  are fortunate today to have the choice of whether to stay at home and raise a family or go out and forge a career in whichever profession they choose. You can’t say fairer than that.