Cruella de Vil Is Having a Moment

If the devil on your shoulder has been telling you to embrace your inner villain, what better style icon is there to embody than Cruella de Vil? Though she first appeared in Dodie Smith’s 1956 children’s book, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, Cruella is better known among fashion-loving folk as Disney’s best-dressed and least hateable antagonist. This season, designers have anointed her as the ultimate muse: Over-the-top fur coats were spotted everywhere from Bottega Veneta to Schiaparelli. Fortunately, no dalmatians were harmed in the making of this outerwear.

Vegan designer Stella McCartney inverted Cruella’s narrative with a collection that was dedicated to McCartney’s love of horses and the importance of living in harmony with animals. And although it certainly does look like some kind of beast was sacrificed in order to make the striking coats that Balenciaga and Gucci sent down their runways, both brands are officially fur-free. Ostriches deserve a standing ovation for their memorable feather donations, which played a dramatic role in Valentino’s new angle on contrasting stripes. If any of the luxury labels on these statement pieces were to be replaced with “House of de Vil,” no one would bat an eye.

The warm embrace of black and white glamour is proof that Old Hollywood and Art Deco will always fall back into favor—but if you’re going to do both fur and femme in 2023, it has to be fatale. Cruella’s influence on catwalks is just a thread in a larger strain of dangerous femininity that has been coursing through post-pandemic trends. Bad bitch energy is among the most valuable sartorial currencies of the present. Cruella, as a cosmopolitan aesthete and unapologetic glamazon, is one of its most potent incarnations.

If we can briefly overlook her puppy-pelting ambitions, de Vil is simply a designer with a unique vision. Odds are that if you identify as a fashion victim, you have likely also committed your fair share of crimes. Perhaps you’ve violated the rules of good taste or robbed your own bank account to pay for clothes you don’t need. These coats may be fit to wear only the distances between a penthouse, a black car, and a dirty vodka martini, but if Cruella has taught us anything, it’s that a great coat is like a great sauce—if it’s delicious enough, it doesn’t really matter what’s underneath.