From the catwalks to TikTok: the fashion fever of the nineties spreads without remedy

That at Kourtney Kardashian's wedding, in May 2022, most of the guests were dressed in original garments from the Dolce & Gabbana archive was, in addition to a sign of admiration for the brand, a sign of power: for a long time, The

models

of the Italian house, especially those from the late nineties, are one of the most coveted treasures by fans of high fashion.

The stylist Alba Melendo, who works with artists like Karol G and Bad Gyal, knows this from her own experience, and she knows the difficulties of achieving quality pieces.

“Nineties Dolce & Gabbana, like Tom Ford's Gucci, are hard to find.

It is a search job, a long time and collaboration with

, which in turn track the pieces”.

He says that, some time ago, after looking for them a lot, he got hold of some boots from the early two thousandths of the Italian brand.

“When I finally got them, a celebrity tried to buy them for me.

He was very insistent!"

The data confirms his thesis.

At Vestiaire Collective, one of the key points for the sale of second-hand fashion —although the real war is played in the

stores of Los Angeles, the best assorted ones—, Tom Ford's Gucci (1994-2004) is sold at the price of caviar.

A silk dress exceeds 24,000 euros, and her iconic silver bracelets in the shape of handcuffs reach 43,000 euros.

In turn, the leather jackets of Dolce & Gabbana from the nineties are around 5,000 euros.

She's no wonder the Italians have taken notice, and that her collection this spring is made up of reissues of curated Kim Kardashian archival pieces, with labels indicating the year they were first released.

On the left, inspired by the archives of the 1990s and 2000s, Dolce & Gabbana's spring summer collection, which features the collaboration of Kim Kardashian, brings back the brand's signature satin corset and marquisette dresses.

On the right, Naomi Campbell, in a 1990 Dolce & Gabbana show. Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (Dolce & Gabbana) / Steve Eichner (Getty Images)

Dolce & Gabbana are the boldest, but '90s fab fever is sweeping the runways, thrift stores and, above all, the red carpets.

Melendo, for example, has dressed Bad Gyal on several occasions with original pieces by John Galliano from the brand's archives, which sometimes opens its warehouses for special loans.

In terms of image, it is a profitable operation: fashion websites have been incorporating

for the best archive garments that appear on the catwalks for a long time.

Some of the designs that run through these pages are true icons of the house, such as the leather dress, straps and studs that Dua Lipa wore at the Grammys and that works almost like a metonym for the genius of Gianni Versace, who presented it in 1992, at the peak of his career.

Although it is true that

has always been there as a sign of power, in a few moments like the present, so much attention has been paid to the fashion of the nineties, an excessive and multicolored era, sexy to the limit and with a love for the equally remarkable luxury, which until recently was considered extravagance, an era whose excesses eventually took their toll and led to turn-of-the-century minimalism.

In the collective imagination are those parades in which the models fell from their dizzying high-heeled shoes and improvised by crawling down the catwalk (it happened to the

Spanish Helena Barquilla on the Thierry Mugler catwalk), the most baroque collections of Versace and the most surreal and bejeweled collections of Jean Paul Gaultier, the lavish masquerade balls of John Galliano and those parties full of dresses by Valentino and Oscar de la Renta.

Also the rupture caused by the arrival of Tom Ford at Gucci, with dresses that adhered like a second skin and dispensed with decorations to give prominence to the body, sex and a sense of luxury —and the desire for luxury— precise as a scalpel

The nineties were a decade in which fashion became so superlative that supermodels even opened a coffee shop franchise —it didn't last long— and the documentary that portrayed that madness —

(1994), full of running around behind the scenes and egos that couldn't fit through the doors, starred a brilliant designer, Isaac Mizrahi, whose erratic label would end up closing shortly after.

On the left, supermodel Linda Evangelista, at the presentation of Valentino's spring summer 1992 collection.

On the right, actress Zendaya wore a dress from Valentino's spring summer 1992 collection in January 2022. Daniel Simon / Jeff Kravitz (Getty Images)

Today, those same brands appear in the lyrics of hip hop and trap, in the justifications for the outfits of the Drag Race contestants and, above all, in the inspirational panels of the designers and stylists who drive the style right now.

The most excessive fashion of the nineties is in the DNA of Coperni, of Ludovic de Saint Sernin, in the dizzying draped dresses of Blumarine and the revival of Roberto Cavalli by Fausto Puglisi.

The French industrialist Didier Grumbach tells in his

(Superflua editorial) that when his partner Thierry Mugler started doing haute couture, this excessive fashion "was his dream and he created fabulous dresses, but it favored image more than sales."

Today the brand, led by Casey Cadwallader, recovers those references, but it does not have its sights set on haute couture, but on the street: its collaboration with H&M is a sort of anthology of house icons designed to be worn on the catwalk at 2023, which is no longer in salons, but on the street, in dance clubs and on TikTok.

It is true that, like all

, wearing these garments today does not mean the same as wearing them then.

That today fifteen-year-olds go crazy when Naomi Campbell steps on the Versace catwalk in Los Angeles is not just mythomania, but the demonstration that that era of excesses, frivolous discomfort and extraordinary photogenicity was also fundamental in the sentimental education of several generations that they found in her fun, culture and a subversive flame that has not yet been completely extinguished.

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