FOLKLORE FASHION - THE SHAPESHIFTING SELKIE BRAND IS BRINGING FANTASY TO REALITY
By: Hillary LeBlanc
Who didn’t love hearing stories growing up full of fantasy and alluring characters? Designer Kimberly Gordon, who lived in the UK and then Santa Barbara, fell in love with folklore. Like many adults, much of what she does today is influenced by her greatest childhood memories. Her fashion brand Selkie is very much a product of those memories of getting lost in stories full of fanciful, nostalgic and extra romantic foklore.
The name Selkie comes from Irish, Scottish, Icelandic and Scandinavian folklore. The Selkie is a shapeshifting mythological woman of the ocean who lives inside a seal skin. When she comes up to the rocks she slips out of her skin to bask in the sun. If a man is able to steal her skin while she sleeps, she is forced to become his wife and live on land. But — if the Selkie finds her skin again, she transforms back into her true form and immediately returns to the sea, free. Gordon hopes women who wear her garments find themselves or feel true to who they are.
Source: Selkie Website
While we still live in a society that caters a bit more towards fashion trends for thinner or petite women, there has slowly been a shift as we see brands take on these stereotypes in runway shows. The response to such shows have been influencing what sizes are sold in stores. The brand Selkie made waves when their New York Fashion Week shows were more size-inclusive than most, which resulted in the shows going viral - and the ability to expand their size offerings.
Selkie’s items are ready-to-wear offering party dresses and lounge wear from XXS to 6X, meaning 13 sizes are offered. This is a rarity for most growing brands due to high production cost to create, market and sell inventory in all sizes.
The brand defines itself as low-waste, as they create small batch drops of high quality items with some garments having only 15-20 ever made! While Selkie is not 100% sustainable due to the use of polyester, they are consciously committed to finding environmental ways to evolve. All of Selkie's prints are created in house, and all fabrics are carefully and ethically sourced from different regions of China.
Source: Selkie Website
The dresses often exude the French coquette style, with puff dresses that are short with billowing sleeves, or styles reminiscent of ballerina tutus. Garments are covered in lace, held together with corsetry and models wear extravagant headpieces. What really stands out is seeing plus-sized bodies in a variety of garments, some half naked, a clear showing of loving the skin you are in. Selkie models have also included models in wheelchairs and pro-age models.
The Selkie runway shows also feel like acts of rebellion. Models have eaten as they walked down the runway, danced and strutted in ways that could make someone more traditional like Anna Wintour stiffen at the sight. In 2022, when Selkie started to go viral, there were over 46 Million results on the Selkie hashtag within TikTok.
Despite the praise that Selkie received, in 2023 the average women’s dress size was 16 but only 0.9% of looks on the New York Fashion Week runway were plus-sized. This number increased from 0.6% the season prior.
The Selkie brand has fun with the way they share their designs, crafting stories and collages for their collection themes such as vampires and star-crossed. Collections range from whimsical themes like The Princess and the Pea, and Send Me an Angel. The brand has also collaborated with hit Netflix show Bridgerton on several collections. The most recent collection shares the work of artist Degas through the lens of ballet with the brand highlighting two ballerinas from the American Ballet Theatre as the muses.
As society continues to shift toward more size inclusion, more brands will likely take a page from Selkie’s book and follow suit.