British-born Colin McDowell is considered as one of the most influential fashion commentators of the 20th and 21st century. He is the the Senior Fashion Writer of Sunday Times Style, author of ‘McDowell’s Directory of Twentieth Century Fashion’ and founder of Fashion Fringe.
For A#3 he has contributed a thought-provoking article entitled “Elegance”, which discusses the term and it’s evolution and relevance in the modern day. Find excerpts from his article below:

“When we think of elegance, we recall the perfect simplicity of a Grès gown or the rigorous cut of a Balenciaga dress, both as judged in their elegance as Beethoven’s last string quartets…”

“The elegance of simplicity comes from great complexity, of imagination, thought and above all, cut. “

“British couturier Sir Hardy Amies once described when I asked him the essence of his job, as ‘to do honour to the cloth.’”

“Just as women stand and walk differently to fifty years ago, so the statuesque and almost frozen air of clothes from the mid-twentieth century now seems strange, wrong and even alien to modern women.”

“The future for elegance is just that, the future, with few backward glances and no overly fastidious references to the past, otherwise it becomes that most degraded of all things in any artistic cannon: pastiche.”