Sigmund Freud may have been right all along. He argued that dreams could be our unconscious minds giving us a glimpse into our deepest, darkest fears and desires. Of all the insecurities crowding my teenage years, none has been as frightening as the one that concerns waking up in a cold sweat to realise, I was dreaming of having left my home without getting dressed out of the towel.

It turns out that the neuroses were not out of step. The Balenciaga towel skirt, showcased at the Spring 2024 Paris show, entered the popular lexicon earlier this year. It’s the work of Demna Gvasalia, the Spanish luxury brand’s creative director whose fashion holds up a mirror to what’s happening in the world, and this time, turned us directly to our own bathrooms. At first, the towel skirt seemed like another type of “stunt dressing” (a neologism that captures performative fashion) to get everyone talking.