Here's the answer to what you want to wear now

Just over a decade ago, when the world was reeling in the aftermath of the Great Recession, Jil Sander, a German designer whose uncompromising approach to minimalist luxury had defined a certain kind of soft-power dressing for ambitious women, swooped in to offer much-needed palliative care.

Joining forces with Japanese fast-fashion giant Uniqlo, Sander rethought her special brand of high-minded basics with a less high-numbered price. The result became one of the most successful, and unexpected, mass-market designer collaborations up to that point. It was one based less on momentary buzz and influencers than on solving problems, like how clothes can help get you through the day. Called +J, it ran for five seasons, gave Uniqlo instant cred in the West and was briefly revived in 2014 as a greatest hits line.

Now, as the world reels in the throes of another crisis, it is back.

And as it turns out, Sander, a 76-year-old from Hamburg who never played the social media or celebrity game, who is not on Instagram, who had an exhausting Hamletian relationship with high fashion (she left and returned to her namesake company twice after her initial departure), who has been essentially absent from fashion for the last six years, who missed the whole Kardashian moment — who many Gen Y and Zers may not even know — could well be the ideal designer for this mid-#MeToo, social justice, covid-19, climate crisis time.

She may, in fact, have the answer to the question that has been bedeviling not just fashion but all of us who have had to pull ourselves out of bed and the slough of despond to negotiate life since lockdown began: how do we dress, not necessarily for the world that comes next but to face the world we are in?

The first thing to know: it does not involve sweatpants.

“I think that radical down-dressing is a drainer,” Sander said from Germany, where she has been stuck since February. (She is not a fan of Zoom.)

“I am a modernist, and believe in mapping the future,” she said. “I am stupefied by the nostalgic turn fashion continues to take. Dressing in yesterday’s styles depresses our capacity to deal with present problems. Not making an effort in the morning will slow down your day and disorient you. If we want to change the world, we have to keep renewing ourselves.”

Who wants something of this moment? This moment is awful. You want something that is beyond the moment. Above the moment.

At first Uniqlo wanted the safety of 10 “best pieces.” Sander said she argued for a whole collection, though not the bloated kind runway-goers have become used to, with 60 or 70 outfits. Rather, she argued for a reduced-to-its-essence, all-you-need-and-nothing-else kind (excess stuff being the last thing anyone wants).

She started in January and went to Japan in February, though she has been working via videoconference since then. The result is a tightly edited collection of 25 pieces for men and 32 for women in a limited color palette (black, white, navy, burgundy) that fit together like an interlocking puzzle with no unnecessary parts.

There are crisp but nonconstricting white cotton collarless shirts and black tuxedo button-ups that are best with the ties left louchely undone. A slouchy black pantsuit and neat collarless navy jacket. Thin, body-caressing knits. And a panoply of fantastic puffers with face-framing collars and sculpted silhouettes, as well as hoods that can be drawn up and turtled into.

Though there are separate lines for men and women, they can be mixed and matched as desired. (People will desire.) The prices range from $49.90 for the shirts and sweaters to $249.90 for the cashmere-blend overcoats.

“To me, it seems less important to express your sex than to show by the way you dress that you respect yourself,” Sander said. “I wanted to define the body without restricting it, to focus on controlled volumes, rather than just oversize, so it feels generous.”

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