The Sellable Dress Finally Gets Its Due

For a long stretch, calling a collection commercial was the politest way a front row had of saying it was forgettable. That reading is shifting: houses are now treating salability as a brief rather than a compromise, building runway shows that hold up on the rack as well as under the lights. The result, by Vogue's account, is work that gets the trade itself genuinely talking. For anyone keeping track of what is actually worn, from the red carpet to the pageant stage, that is welcome news, because the clothes that sell are the clothes that turn up on people.

With reporting from Vogue.