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continuation of love affair with sweeping, romantic maxi dresses. Witness the popularity of labels such as Ghost, Sleeper and Reformation, which collectively spawned so many high-street copies that by June, rare was the London woman not gathering up her skirts in dramatic fashion before stepping daintily on to the Tube. Failing to the has never had such dire consequences than when wearing billowing hems. And boy, are hems, skirts and even sleeves billowing. Voluminous satin gowns in searingly bright hues at Marc Jacobs; long, sweeping frocks with commensurately bombastic sleeves at Roksanda (both designers favoured da odil yellow); tiers of faded rose pink organza at Rochas; full, quilted skirts at Oscar de la Renta; ankle-length crinolines in satin and sequins at Simone the list goes on.

These designers are not even working at the most exaggerated end of the spectrum. For that we must surely turn (carefully, if we happen to be near any naked ames) to Molly Goddard, the designer who has done as much for Big Dress Energy as Jodie Comer has for sexy female psychopaths. It was Goddard who so memorably dressed character, Villanelle, in a baby-pink tulle evening gown in season one of Killing Eve as she went about her business killing people in gay Paree. For autumn, Goddard has reprised the dress in fuchsia, lemon and mint green, expanding its proportions even further. Of all the fashionable looks that Villanelle wore throughout the two seasons of the much-loved show, it was That Dress that most lingers in the memory, ostensibly because it so played against type.

Er, all murderers wear black? The chutzpah of an undercover assassin choosing such an attention-drawing dress. The balls of her! Chutzpah is precisely what underpins the ramped-up, vamped-up XXL creations of autumn: you need a good dose of it to wear them. Unlike the wa maxi dresses of summer, an extremity to them, an air of de ance that feels refreshingly subversive. Big dresses speak of a refusal to blend in: a desire to stand up and be counted. In fact, you could call them the ultimate in womanspreading.

Even in 2019, a supposed age of equality, women are still to sit a certain way: witness the furore when the Duchess of Sussex had the temerity to cross her legs at the knee, instead of at the ankle in keeping with royal protocol. The movement against has been gathering force all summer, with models Bella Hadid, Chrissy Teigen and Emily Ratajkowski among those posting pics on Instagram of themselves spreading out and taking up as much space as they see t. A er years of manspreading, could this be riposte? Even if not being worn intentionally to hog space, these big, bold dresses make it impossible to ignore the wearer. They are not for wall owers; they say, Ida Petersson, buying director at Browns, thinks the move towards statement dresses is in response to the streetwear and athleisure trends that have dominated fashion for the past few seasons. a return to women dressing for themselves, embracing femininity in all its guises, falling back in love with the drama and fantasy of couture and cra If big dresses are about escapism, they can also act as a sort of glamorous armour.

I somehow felt less worried about the dentist in my vintage dress, like a superhero in chi on, with my skirt as a sort of protective cape. Obviously, dresses are feminine, but XXL dresses are hyperfeminine, their exaggerated proportions and eye-popping colours owing a debt to the amplified femininity of drag queens. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the designs of rising star Tomo Koizumi, a costume designer whose work was discovered on Instagram by stylist Katie Grand and which led her to put on a show for him at New York Fashion Week. Inspired by the cult performance artist Leigh Bowery, the multi-coloured, multi-layered creations are like rarefied, couture versions of the subversive costumes he would wear at London clubs such as Blitz in the 1980s. A similar mood came courtesy of Lady Brandon Maxwell gown at this Met Ball, and Billy Christian Siriano tuxedo gown at the Oscars.

For why should BDE belong solely to women? Whoever you are, this season, a case of go big or go home. Head to standard.co.uk/esmagazine to browse our edit of the top 50 big dresses of the season dresses speak of a refusal to blend in: a desire to stand up and be JW ANDERSON AW19 CECILIE BAHNSEN AW19 MARC JACOBS AW19 MOLLY GODDARD AW19 FENDI AW19 ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD AW19 MARY KATRANTZOU AW19 TOMO KOIZUMI AW19 Dan and Corina Lecca; Shaun James Cox; Isidore Montag; Ben Broom eld; Monica Feudi; Mathias Nordgren 32 ES MAGAZINE 13.09.19.