The look of Chanel under Virginie Viard has been a youthfully flirty yet largely practical one. Her composed sensibility has given birth to one of the brand’s new signatures: an elegant flowing pantsuit cut for daytime ease. In Fall/Winter 2021 however, she’s taken on more uninhibited inspirations from the world of nightlife, basing the collection on and showing in the Castel nightclub in Paris. It explains the many minidresses; several of which were revealed only with the shrug of the cosy coats thrown over them on the runway. And perhaps one of the most unexpected and playfully come-hither accessories to emerge from Viard’s canon for the house: a jewelled bracelet is worn around the thigh as an opulent garter (PS. this is not the last you’ll see of it).

The bodysuit – or rather, the unitard (long sleeves, legs and all) – cements itself as a statement piece in its own right this Fall/Winter. Instead of being treated as a base layer, designers are using them as canvases for their creativity. At Emilio Pucci where print is king, they’re swathed in the house’s iconic patterns in pleasing hues like daisy yellow and mint green – inspired by the very first thing its founder designed back in the ’30s: the one-piece ski suit.

Meanwhile, Prada offers the season’s most conceptual take by treating jacquard knits with ’60s-inflected patterns like a second skin. The boldest options come as full bodysuits – like protective thermal wear you’ll want to show off.

Alessandro Michele’s Gucci has been described as many things, yet until now, sexy has not been one of the key adjectives used. The brand’s Aria collection however marks a notable change in tone that Michele ascribed to his continuing effort to “renew for the millionth time this brand” in the press notes. A key reference was former creative director Tom Ford who in the ’90s had made Gucci the sexiest brand around. That “erotic, luxurious and hedonistic” energy was what the brand’s present-day leading man tapped on, dreaming up horsebit harnesses, leather whips worked into bag handles and lingerie-style pieces that charged this collection with a distinctly Dionysian energy.

Another big idea in the return of “bodycon”: revealing skin through not-the-usual cut-outs. Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent, for example, was in a cheeky mood, mixing unabashedly micro, body-skimming or skin-baring styles from the ’60s and ’80s, which – as the brand itself puts it – blurs the line between “cheesy and luxurious”. “Fashion should be something you don’t take too seriously,” he says of the approach. “Especially now, when nothing is really necessary, it’s good to laugh about life.”

That light-hearted jab at good taste is also seen at Givenchy, where Matthew Williams has put an artisanal floating stitch technique to raunchy use, fashioning the likes of a stringy dress made to tease.

And at Longchamp where the idea is enveloping sensuality, an otherwise modest ribbed knit dress boasts an idiosyncratic slash along one side of the bodice.

This article first appeared in the September 2021 Brave New World edition of FEMALE