Technical developments and the desire for comfort are the two essential criteria driving the history of clothing, at least for the past two centuries. The latter is more than ever the driving force. The absence of constraint has become paramount and explains contemporary street aesthetics. Many people dress indifferently, whether to go to the market or to a concert. The iron has disappeared, a sign of differentiated treatment for clothes that are usually machine-washed. Clothes must first and foremost be easy. A friend of mine sees this as an American influence, setting up lifestyle comfort as a dogma of progress. It’s true that a Manhattan-based customer recently told me how, during a videoconference, he was confronted by an interlocutor dressed in pyjamas.

Where do we go from here? To a single-use, disposable garment? Virtue will certainly recycle it or sell it second-hand. But there’s a limit to all this, and it’s called elegance…