In its most common use, a towel is a transient item. It’s the thing you wrap up in once something’s just finished, a swim, a shower, or a sweaty jog, and curiously enough, this style is on runway-approved.

 

Both Miuccia Prada and Ludovic de Saint Sernin posited the towel-as-garment for spring 2020, wrapping terry cloth minis around models’ waists. Amidst the upper-crust-on-holiday leather suits and proper gold-chain handbags of Miuccia Prada’s arte povera via Positano show was model Silte Haken in a white towel, folded over and cinched at her left hip. It was styled with a seashell-as-pearl necklace, a simple knit top, and a pair of woven loafers. In its mid-to-late-century iteration, a towel was often a shorthand for glamorous escapism.