Whenever I think of the relationship between food and fashion, I think of the scene from Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) in which Alette Naylor, editor of the eponymous magazine Alette, acquiesces to being served cake by Rebecca’s mum. When a small piece is cut, Alette screams “Tiny!” until the piece in her plate has been reduced to a crumb of cake. She smiles happily as she looks at the speck on her plate. It’s a short scene in a gorgeous movie but it’s very telling of how food has always been demonised. Less than two decades ago, in 2009, Kate Moss said her infamous mantra: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
Not only has Moss since distanced herself from that controversial catchphrase but the fashion industry itself has undergone a long overdue transformation over the past few decades. Once favouring a stark, almost anti-food aesthetic—particularly during the ’90s heroin chic era—fashion is now happily commingling with food. From the rise of immersive dining experiences, like Hermès’s Faubourg Express dining experience at One Ayala, Philippines in January, to designer collaborations with culinary artisans like Maxime Frédéric X Louis Vuitton, food has become a tangible, interactive part of the fashion landscape. The cultural shift toward maximalism, play and sensory engagement has wrought the unison of texture, colour and ephemerality—qualities that both food and fashion share. Where minimalism once reigned, there is now a growing appetite for presentations that blur the line between the edible and the ornamental.