After many decades of working as a fashion designer and a fashion educator I have decided that I should finally do this 'fashion" thing for myself. I remember the New York garment center "good old days" (or the "bad old days"--depending on how you look at it), when you could walk out for lunch and land another design job. Well, that was when they still rolled racks of clothing and furs through midtown streets, and when "made in the USA" was a big deal.
Things have changed in the New York garment center and globally. Where there used to be manufacturers and showrooms galore, there are now offices, condominiums, and everything else. It saddened me when I went into a Duane Reade drug store to shop, and in reality, I was standing in one of my old design room offices. Things have changed a lot, and now everyone is complaining about tariffs because we import 95 percent of apparel and nearly all accessories from somewhere across a sea or at least a legal border.
Okay, so we make clothes "over there" somewhere, and because they can make them so cheaply, we Americans lost our sense of quality and style to disposable chic. If you do not believe me, look at how people dress while riding the MTA or otherwise. It's a sea of cheap puffer coats, dirty or faded synthetic clothing, and run-over heels. The handbag may be the only item that is of quality on the person of the average New Yorker. Not that anyone should pontificate wealth by what they wear, but just as a matter of care, about the way they look in public. Do we really care? The answer is yes, we do care about how we look; however, most of us are under a spell cast by discount retailers and credit card debt created from purchasing trash they call clothing. Even big designer names make poor-quality garments and charge a lot of money for them.
So I visited a big New York store today with my FIT students to view women's coats, and what did I see? I witnessed the graveyard of "puffer" or "puff" coats and jackets. The terms are street casual and given to insulated outerwear that is filled with feathers or fiber fill. These coats have pillow-like indentations on the outside stitched in a decorative quilt style. Now, some of these were bad buys from seasons past, but it appears that even recently manufactured puffer coats (particularly the faux-down types) are being ghosted by consumers. Could it be that women—no, not just women, but every consumer—already owns a puff balloon coat? Could it be possible that we are tired of looking like walking balloons?
In their heyday, top designers made a killing by making us all look like balloon toys and chess pieces. Some swear by the warmth of goose feathers and other pillow stuffings, and even some of these look great when they are not sporting the Michelin Man-like seaming. We have played this look long enough; now someone has to wake the masses. It is time to move away from this concept of outerwear.
The puff coat is out of fashion because it no longer fits the aesthetic of our time. It may have arisen as a way to stay warm. Let us also remember that we were looking for something to keep us warm that animal rights groups would not consider to be cruel to animals. Everyone thought that since most of the birds from which they take the feathers are eaten by humans, the process was sustainable, or at least we were told it was so. Slowly, everyone pushed their furs into the back of closets, sold them off, or gave them to charity. The replacement was the down coat. We are more than 30 years into the down-and-fiber-filled outerwear trend, and we no longer have to wear this old-fashioned look. I say, down with puffers. Designers, retailers, manufacturers, and fashion-conscious consumers must move away from this fashion dog. Besides, it appears that it is once again more fashionable to wear real feathers on the outside of garments.
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