I’m a proponent of letting women wear what they want — you wanna wear a sheer dress? Go for it. You wanna wear those toadstool-looking MSCHF boots? Be my guest. What I will do, though, is draw the line when it gets corny. And Miss Katy Perry has been serving looks on the cob all couture week.
First and foremost, I’d like to present exhibit A from the “Woman’s World” singer (yes, that’s the song people thought was AI-generated because of lyrics like “Sexy, confident / So intelligent”). Perry attended the Balenciaga fashion show at Paris Couture Week and showed up in low-waisted, ripped tights and a long, furry coat billowing open and without a shirt or bra underneath. Now, while I’m all for freeing the nip, tit, and so on if that’s your thing, there was simply no feeling to this moment. There was no heart! No soul or intention oozing from this bold choice! It felt, frankly, contrived. Sure, Perry objectively looked hot — the slicked-back hair, the glasses, etc. — but this look felt like a costume more than an outfit. It’s essentially what I looked like emerging from my mother’s closet while playing dress-up as a child.
Exhibit B comes to us as an incredibly long train (500 feet long, to be exact) billowing out of a limousine behind Perry upon her arrival at Paris’s Vendôme. The fabric, which unfortunately folded on top of itself and was virtually unreadable, was emblazoned with the lyrics to her aforementioned song, set to drop in July. The public was treated to a snippet via Perry’s Instagram: “She is heaven-sent / So soft / So strong.” Some words that could be made out from the American Idol judge’s dress read, “She’s a winner, champion. Superhuman, Number One. She’s a sister. She’s mother. Open your eyes, just look around and you’ll discover. You know. It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be living in it.”
Understandably, these looks generate buzz, buzz generates press, and press generates clicks. I’m feeding the media beast at this very moment with every keystroke. And yet, I just want Perry to make me believe it. I know we’ve all got something to promote, but there has got to be a better way than this.
