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Fabric that once defined Northern Ireland’s capital is at heart of its stylish revival, embraced by designers, royalty and heritage farmers alike On a cobbled street in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, next door to a hipster coffee shop and opposite an ice-cream parlour that has a near-constant queue since going viral on TikTok, the elegant Kindred of Ireland boutique is doing a surprisingly brisk trade in artfully oversized butter yellow linen blouses and exquisite Donegal mulberry tweed jackets finished with a length of rose pink linen tied in a bow at the nape of the neck. Half a century after the Troubles, Belfast is finding a new identity through an industry that once defined it. Linen – the fibre that built its wealth and earned it the name Linenopolis – is being woven into a story of renewal. Almost a century after the postwar collapse of an industry that, at its peak, employed 40% of the working population of Northern Ireland, linen is returning as a marker of identity. Continue reading...
The key to stopping pale colours feeling saccharine? Breaking them up with tougher textures – here are three ideas to whip up this weekend from our styling editor Continue reading...
Whether it’s a tiered tulle skirt or a hardworking Henley tee, our fashion expert’s Easter basket is brimming with joy • The best women’s spring wardrobe updates for under £100 I am a big fan of Easter, which is an underrated holiday in my opinion: lots of joy and food, but better weather than Christmas (or at least more daylight) and less stress. So my April shopping list starts, naturally, with a chocolate egg. More goodies include not one but two stormingly gorgeous new-season high-street skirts. Also, an umbrella to keep you smiling through the inevitable spring rain – and the shades you’ll want when the sun comes out. Because that’s April for you! Continue reading...
A new book celebrating four decades of fashion photography duo Inez and Vinoodh features celebrity portraits, surrealist visions and a meditation on love itself Continue reading...
Nevermind the trends, want to know how to dress for actual spring weather? Then read on It all came to a head, as matters of getting dressed so often do, over black tights. I had wanted to wear my silver skirt, you see. It was a rare blue-sky day and the sunshine was making me crave reflective surfaces to maximise the light. Anyway, you know how it is when you just get a yen to wear something. So I pulled out said silver skirt and then realised I didn’t want to wear the black opaque tights I wear with it in winter, but it wasn’t anywhere near warm enough to wear it with bare legs as I do in summer. I was completely stumped. And it made me realise: I need a refresher course in what to wear at this time of year. Spring has sprung, but I have forgotten how to hop to it. So here we have it: your pocket primer on how to dress for spring. I’m talking about the spring that happens every year, an actual real-world meteorological phenomenon, not about the fashion trends of this particular moment. The lengthening days, daylight commuting, the juicy greens and yellows of the landscape, the maverick unpredictability of rain. Whether zebra stripes are the new leopard does not concern us today. We don’t need fashion to provide the newness when newness is in abundance in the world. So we can flick back through the pages to remind ourselves of spring’s fashion classics. Continue reading...
Sara Ziff, founder of Model Alliance, said business leaders need to be hauled before House oversight committee A top modeling industry activist has called for business leaders to be hauled before lawmakers in Washington to investigate what role modeling agencies may have played in the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking scandal. Sara Ziff is the founder of the Model Alliance, a non-profit advocacy group calling for fair treatment, labor rights and safe working conditions for fashion industry workers. Continue reading...
Series about the lives and deaths of Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr is ‘prestige television without the usual weight’ The plane vanishes. Families are told. Ashes are scattered. So ends Love Story, Ryan Murphy’s schlocky, glossy nine-part melodrama about the doomed marriage between Carolyn Bessette and John F Kennedy Jr. Yet one thing is clear: the myth of Camelot – or at least this version – still captivates. This week, Disney+ confirmed Love Story is now the most streamed drama in the platform’s history. A rare sleeper hit, later episodes drew 50% more global viewers than February’s pilot, boosted by “social reach” and word of mouth. Continue reading...
Prepare for bouclé jackets, quilted chain-link bags galore and an outfit formula that is proving to be consumer catnip Just six months after Matthieu Blazy unveiled his debut collection for Chanel, and a week after it landed in stores, excitement over the new designer has reached fever pitch. There have been queues outside shops, grapples at the tills and dozens of social media posts bragging about purchases. Now, Blazy’s Chanel effect is coming for the high street. Prepare for bouclé jackets and quilted chain-link bags galore. “It is a good sign that it has become immediately a reference point for the high street,” says Mario Ortelli, a managing partner at the luxury advisory firm Ortelli & Co. “When a new product and new creative direction is successful it is copied by the high street. If not, it means it is not relevant or is only relevant for a niche set of consumers.” Continue reading...
From flannel shirts to herringbone tailoring, Pep Guardiola’s stylistic pivot hints at a man renegotiating his identity in the twilight of his footballing era • Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Last Tuesday, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola lost to Real Madrid in a £270 shirt. The grungy flannel number from the cult Swedish menswear brand Our Legacy was so noteworthy it consumed more post-match oxygen than the news that Manchester City had been dumped out of the Champions League before the quarter-finals. Never mind that Guardiola is beginning to look bereft of ideas for the first time in his career. All anyone cared about was whether he’d hired a stylist. Continue reading...
Show draws almost entirely from collection of Lancashire schoolteacher Peter Smithson, a fan since he was 10 Peter Smithson’s wife, Belise, has never minded when he receives a corset from Japan or a pair of fur-trimmed knickers and they are not for her. “No, she’s never seen it as strange,” said Smithson, a chemistry teacher and Vivienne Westwood supercollector. “She has never judged it. She gets it. She knows it is part and parcel of who I am.” Continue reading...
It will come into its own in summer. Until then, try layering it with spring-ready jackets and chill-proof knitwear Continue reading...
Response from British fashion industry has been jubilant and Kane’s first Mulberry collection is reportedly to be unveiled at London fashion week 2027 The British fashion designer Christopher Kane has been named as the new creative director of Mulberry. The Glaswegian-born designer will relaunch the English heritage brand’s women’s ready-to-wear collection, with his debut reportedly to be launched in September at London fashion week, before landing in stores and online from January 2027. Continue reading...
The true quality of a fabric is revealed by a neutral tone – one that beautifully offsets the brighter tones of 2026. Just don’t mention John Major Sometimes a colour name is a whole mood. Rouge Noir: the stamp of cult 1990s glamour. Millennial pink: the colour of overthinking and oversharing. Elephant’s Breath by Farrow & Ball: the imperial age of the gastro pub. I have a new favourite. Pairs is a lovely little Scottish brand which makes great quality socks at good prices. There are many cute names – Frosting Pink, Milky Tea Beige – but the one I just had to click on was Correct Grey, “a warm grey with nods to a classic British school sock”, according to the website. Continue reading...
V&A South Kensington, London The Italian designer loved to shock and this dazzling show is like sashaying through a party in 1930s Paris with Schiap and her darling friends Cocteau and Dalí Naked mermaids and prancing horses, silk carrots and unshelled peanuts, gilded elephant trunks, drums and masks – and those are just a few of the buttons. The V&A’s lavish spring show is a weird and wonderful tumble down the rabbit hole that is Schiaparelli, fashion’s house of surrealism. Elsa Schiaparelli designed clothes to be witty, not just pretty, and that lively spirit runs through this show. A shoe becomes a hat, bones grow on the outside of a dress, a telephone dial becomes a compact mirror. A stroll through the galleries feels less like admiring a beauty pageant lineup of frocks, and more like taking a turn through a 1930s Paris cocktail party with Schiaparelli and her friends Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau: bracingly avant garde, mildly unsettling, all visual puns and in-jokes and never a dull moment. Turn a corner from a Man Ray painting of a lit candle wearing a harlequin coat and you encounter a mannequin perched on a ledge, wearing a jacket that sprouts gold palm trees at the shoulders. It is wild, and it works. Continue reading...
At the very moment Trump’s rambling speeches and meme–fied inanity threaten to overwhelm us, fashion, music and film are moving in the opposite direction Put down your negroni, hang up your Prada handbag and pick up a paperback. Next time someone whips out their phone to take your picture, grab your reading specs, not your lipstick. Smart is the new hot. Pop stars are launching book clubs – the 1970s had Studio 54, this decade has Dua Lipa’s online literary salon Service95 – or joining Substack, where Charli xcx recently published a 1,800-word essay interrogating why it is that as a pop star “you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid”. The supermodel Kaia Gerber (who is fashion royalty – her mum is Cindy Crawford) passes the time backstage at fashion week reading Didion, Duras and Camus, not Vogue. Continue reading...
Nearly 300 of the actor’s items, from designer gowns to everyday basics, to be sold in Los Angeles, with some lots under $100 A customised sunhat. A slogan sweatshirt. A “mom” necklace. An old copy of Cosmopolitan. If these sound like items found in many homes today, they’re actually the castoffs of a household name: Gwyneth Paltrow. Next week, nearly 300 pieces owned by Paltrow will be on sale as part of an auction at Julien’s, the Los Angeles auction house that has sold big-ticket items such as Marilyn Monroe’s so-called “naked” dress and the leather jacket worn by Olivia Newton-John in Grease. But, while those items went for six-figure prices, Paltrow’s sale is a little more affordable, with estimates starting at about $50 (£37) to $75 (£56) for some of Paltrow’s personalised stationery. Continue reading...
All the talk on red carpet night was of leading guys such as Adrien Brody and Leonardo DiCaprio flashing the bling While the eyes might be the window to the soul, lapels are certainly doing some talking. On the Oscars red carpet last Sunday night, Hollywood’s leading men flashed a lot of bling on their suits. From Adrien Brody who wore an astronomically large brooch titled Ulysses, arguably as big as the James Joyce tome is thick, to a clean-shaven Pedro Pascal, who distracted from his newly bare chin with a silk and feather Chanel Camélia brooch, lapels were vying for the spotlight. Continue reading...
A neat cuff can elevate an outfit in seconds – but it takes more than a quick fold to get it right Trousers – they’re not rocket science. But there are plenty of ways to mess them up, or to elevate them above their primary role of covering legs. A classic styling trick has emerged recently: the turn-up. Harry Styles had them for his pinstripe trews at the Brits, actor Chase Infiniti turned her trousers up at Paris fashion week and hefty turn-ups feature on baggy blue and ecru jeans and olive-green track trousers in JW Anderson’s latest collection for Uniqlo. Turn-ups are the bread and butter of preppy labels such as J Crew-adjacent brand Alex Mill. Head to the website of this New York label and turned-up jeans paired with purple loafers and pink socks, or with letterbox-red ballet flats and yolk-yellow socks, will wash over you like salt spray. At John Lewis, meanwhile, turn-ups run the gamut from pencil-thin to the depth of an Oxford English Dictionary. Continue reading...
The spring equinox is here, which means days in the park, ice-cream selfies and an extra layer for the evening Continue reading...
Bold shades are all over the catwalks, but they can be tricky to wear. These tricks will make them work in the real world You would think primary shades would be the easiest colours to wear. Red, yellow, blue: we can name these before we can tie our shoelaces. They are not sophisticated colours, such as Armani greige or Pantone favourite Mocha Mousse. They are not challenging-to-wear colours, like chartreuse or mustard. They are Mr Men colours. So wearing them must be child’s play, surely. And yet they are weirdly tricky to wear. They can feel shouty and basic: the getting dressed equivalent of speaking loudly without saying anything particularly interesting, which is – to paint it in primary colours – not what any of us are aiming for. Continue reading...
Is the secret to a decent night’s kip a good sleep kit? Silky pyjamas, cosy socks and a dressing gown you won’t mind being seen in when putting the bins out will certainly help Continue reading...
Rotate your trainers, oil your leather footwear and use toe protectors – and whatever you do, don’t chuck your shoes in the washing machine Now that trainers have supplanted smart shoes for so many occasions, and people replace them as often as fashion and budget allow, shoe maintenance is becoming a lost art. But if you love your shoes, it’s well worth pursuing. How can you keep your favourite pairs going for as long as possible? We asked cobblers for their dos and don’ts. Continue reading...
New designer’s kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm is evident in confident colours and loosened silhouettes A building site, but make it chic: that was the set for Chanel’s Paris fashion week show. Cranes in Meccano-bright colours towered over the catwalk, their reflection shimmering sequin-bright on an opalescent floor that was inspired by Monet, according to the designer Matthieu Blazy. Monet has been a backstage buzzword at Dior and Chanel this week, as the two giants battle for bragging rights over French culture. Fashion week loves a visual metaphor. Blazy, who arrived at Chanel last year, is rebuilding the designer, and having fun with it. The invitation for the show was a tiny stainless steel tape measure on a pendant. He has immersed himself in house history – Cocology? – and after the show, greeted reporters clutching a folded printout of an interview Coco Chanel gave to Le Figaro in 1955. Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and a grandee of the brand since 1990, remarked that he had never come across this interview before Blazy brought it to him. Blazy’s kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm is infectious, and the city’s Chanel boutiques have been packed all week. A simple cotton shirt embroidered with the Chanel name is sold out, at a price of €3,900. New season bags are limited to one per customer – a policy designed, the company says, to limit resale at even higher prices. Continue reading...
Seán McGirr inspired by modern identity and ‘London girls’ in one of strongest collections to date, as brand cuts jobs and struggles for momentum Beneath the Paris fashion week hoopla – Chappell Roan resplendent in the front row, champagne flowing backstage – there were dark undercurrents at Alexander McQueen’s Paris fashion week show. The brand has seen a 60% decline in turnover over the past three years. Workforce cuts were made in the London headquarters last year, and a third of the brand’s 180 employees in Italy are thought to be at risk of losing their jobs. Fifteen years after the death of Lee McQueen, the brand is struggling to maintain momentum. The founder is a hallowed name in the fashion industry, and one of the few modern designers to whose character and story the wider public feel a connection. But the generation who wore McQueen’s original bumsters have aged out of shock-value fashion, and the name has less power over younger consumers. Continue reading...
Collaboration with HBO hit is gen Z mashup of glossy blacks and harsh neons, while Celine gives preppy added ‘bite’ The anxiety-spiked, drug-fuelled, hyperstylised technicolour online messiness of generation Z was not on anyone’s bingo card for Balenciaga’s Paris fashion week show. Cristóbal Balenciaga dressed Ingrid Bergman and Jackie Kennedy; its current designer, Pierpaolo Piccioli, is revered as one fashion’s great romantics, the master of colour and poetry on the modern red carpet. The Balenciaga show was a collaboration with Euphoria, HBO’s divisive teen drama. In a dark, cavernous venue on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the lights were low, the music (Rosalía, Labrinth) was loud. On flickering video screens, harlequinade images of nocturnal cityscapes segued into preview images from the long-awaited third series of Euphoria, which returns in April. A sweater was printed with a screen still of new cast member Danielle Deadwyler, smoking a cigarette in a low-cut blood-red top. Continue reading...
There was strictly no mention of estranged son Brooklyn, missing from front row The Beckham empire is a tangled web of family and fortune. After her Paris fashion week show on Friday evening, Victoria Beckham talked backstage about Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish art deco portrait painter from whose palette she took the glowing colours and sinuous lines of this season’s coral and jade party dresses. Strictly no mention of the other story of the night – the absence of her estranged eldest son, Brooklyn, from a front row packed with the rest of the Beckham clan. The designer’s husband, David Beckham, brought her a fortifying glass of red wine as she spoke to reporters. “I relate to Tamara de Lempicka as a strong woman, and to how she conducted herself. She stuck to what she believed in.” Continue reading...
There’s a reason this 70s staple is never out of style. Take your cue from Margot Robbie and team flares with a structured jacket and smart accessories Continue reading...
Sleeveless knits, breton stripes and shoe charms … our fashion writers share their secrets to a budget-friendly, new-season refresh • How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout Think of your spring wardrobe as a dry run for summer. There are the occasional warm days – when you regret leaving the house with a coat – and, of course, no end of showers. There are even the odd times when you can almost get away without wearing tights, which opens you up to all manner of skirts and shoes. Spring is blouson jacket season, and a good time to wear denim beyond jeans (how about a dress?). Now’s also the time to try a short(ish) skirt with socks and loafers, which is strangely wearable for something with its roots in Prada. How about a corset top that isn’t a corset, or wearing a Lanvin-style headscarf if you’re having a difficult hair day? And why not add a bag charm while you’re there? Think 2026 colours – difficult green, pops of cornflower instead of red, universally wearable lilac. Most of all, it’s about adding to what you already own, or styling it in a new way. Welcome to spring. Continue reading...
The TV drama Love Story has brought their fashion back into the spotlight – and inspired nine big trends, from bootcut jeans to backwards caps When images taken on the set of the Disney+ series Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette were teased on social media in June, fans were adamant that the show had got the styling wrong. The fictionalised drama details the relationship between John F Kennedy Jr, then the world’s most eligible bachelor, and the fashion publicist Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, tracing their courtship and marriage, which was lived out under the scrutiny of the press. “This is fashion murder,” wrote one user underneath a picture of Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Bessette Kennedy, and Paul Anthony Kelly, who depicts Kennedy Jr. Such was the outrage that the executive producer Ryan Murphy was forced to defend the styling as “a work in progress”, which led to him hiring a new costume designer, Rudy Mance, to focus on the historical precision. Nine months later, the internet has done a U-turn, with fans now rushing to emulate the couple’s on-screen and off-screen 90s looks. In the past week alone, searches for “Carolyn Bessette style” have increased by 150% on Google. Here are nine trends that the fans are championing. Continue reading...
If you want to add some glitz to elevate your look, try shiny earrings, metallic shoes or a snazzy belt Once in a while, it is fun to pull out all the stops and get properly dressed up. To wear something gorgeous and probably impractical, do your makeup carefully, rather than in two and a half minutes, and coerce a family member into taking a photo before you leave the house. It is awards season, and red carpet fashion hoopla is all around us. But for those of us who don’t have an Oscar nomination, the nights that call for weapons-grade glam are few and far between, especially at this time of year. Which is fine by me because, frankly, who has the time? In real life, for most of us, quick styling hacks when you want to look A Bit Dressed Up are way more useful than a ball gown. Accessories that elevate your look from blah to belle, easy tricks that give your outfit a sense of occasion. These, not the bells-and-whistles party dresses, are the real treasures of your wardrobe. Continue reading...
The two-time Oscar winner on dressing Michael B Jordan’s twin antiheroes, her start with Spike Lee and crafting the period detail of Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending epic Ruth E Carter’s costumes were a crucial part of establishing the identities of the two identical twins, both played by Michael B Jordan, in multi-Oscar-nominated Sinners. Particularly the hats. One brother, Stack, wore a red fedora. The other brother, Smoke, wore a blue newsboy flat cap. Finding the hats was a critical moment in the film’s backstory. When director Ryan Coogler first saw Jordan try on Stack’s red fedora, bought by Carter in Los Angeles’s Melrose Avenue, “he was like – that’s it. Then he goes up into the rest of the office, and people are coming down, like, ‘Ryan’s talking upstairs about a red hat?’ You know when you’ve hit it – it’s a transformation.” This is just a small example of the canny period world-building that has made Carter the most-garlanded Black woman in Oscars history, and the owner of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (her family were in attendance, she says, of its Covid-era unveiling, while Oprah and Eddie Murphy dialled in via Zoom). Her work on Coogler’s genre-squashing, Jim Crow-era drama, which has gained a record-breaking 16 Oscar nods, has landed a fifth nomination for the two-time Oscar winner (she is, according to a poll by Variety, a favourite in the category). Among her starry upcoming projects: a biopic of the pioneering Black fashion designer, Ann Lowe – designer of Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress – which she will produce alongside Serena Williams. Continue reading...
At London fashion week models wore headscarves adorned with jewellery, and brands like Vela are leading the change online. For gen Z Muslim women, bolder designs are making a break from darker colours • Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here There’s a common sentiment among my hijab-wearing friends: a plain black headscarf is the equivalent of putting your hair in a slickback bun. A slickback bun is classic, timeless and polished – it can go with almost anything. But, it can also look a little tired. I love bold prints, and it isn’t just me. A friend of mine gravitates toward leopard prints and pashmina-style scarves, a nod to her Kashmiri heritage. And it’s not only an aesthetic choice – for many hijab-wearing women, patterned scarves feel like a push against the idea that Muslim women should blend in. Continue reading...
Sales beat wider retail sector last year thanks to customers inspired by websites such as Vinted, industry body says Young people inspired by secondhand fashion websites such as Vinted and Depop are helping charity shops thrive despite rising energy and employment costs. Save the Children’s retail sales rose 3% last year, helped by a surge in December when the charity rang up 11% more than the same month a year before, raising more than £1m for its causes. Continue reading...
Gentler take on mullet has flowed over shoulders at Winter Olympics and is now tossed on red carpets Hair cut ideas are typically drummed up in the salon, but recently a more unconventional source of inspiration has appeared: the vegetable aisle. “Lettuce hair” is trending. A gentler take on a traditional mullet, the new salad style consists of more subtle differences in the length between the back, sides and top of the hair. Lettuce hair features a loose and often wavy top, softly tapered sides and a feathery tail that skims the back of the neck, resembling leafy greens. Continue reading...
The backwards cap, a 90s accessory once dismissed as juvenile, is emerging as the latest shorthand for laid‑back confidence • Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Within the first 20 minutes of Love Story, Ryan Murphy’s new take on the often tumultuous relationship between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, the youngest son of the former US president is depicted wearing five different caps. They include a Kangol flat cap as he cycles to a newspaper kiosk in uptown NYC to read the latest headlines about himself, a Yankees cap as he runs topless on a treadmill and a navy baseball cap as he joins his mother, Jacqueline, for dinner, where she promptly reminds him “no hats at the table, please”. For Kennedy Jr, hounded by the paparazzi and tabloid press who nicknamed him “The Hunk” and more often than not “The Hunk Who Flunked”, you might think this penchant for peaked caps was thanks to the fact that they let him go somewhat incognito. But he preferred to wear his backwards, pulling the cap downwards over his signature flop of lush black hair, and leaving his full face on view. Continue reading...
On game day, where fashion has become a huge part of athlete identity, professionals are reaching for codified displays of their wealth • Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here On Sunday night the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, Bad Bunny put on a spectacular half-time show, and multiple players all walked down the tunnel from the car park to the dressing rooms carrying the same logo’d bag. The bag in question, by luxury French brand Goyard, isn’t part of any official uniform – and isn’t really known outside of its 0.1% customer base. But it has become as ubiquitous a status symbol among American football players as their AirPods Max headphones and Richard Mille watches – and is part of a brave new world of tunnel fits. Most primetime NFL games’ coverage start hours before kick-off, as photographers, fans and pundits alike pore over players’ sartorial choices just as they would their missed tackles and spectacular catches. Continue reading...
With the right styling, a hooded top doesn’t have to be restricted to travelling or working from home Continue reading...
In need of a February pep talk? Our fashion expert’s must-haves are here to lift your mood • How to dress in cold weather Let’s get real. Few of us look or feel at our most fabulous in February. It’s been cold and dark for, what, 18 months? Feels like it. Getting dressed feels less stylish self-expression than huddling for warmth. But there are reasons to be cheerful – or, more to the point, things that can bring you cheer. There is Valentine’s Day. (I will never understand why people like to sneer about Valentine’s Day. A daft festival of joy in the bleakest moment of the calendar. Take the win!) I’ve also found a shirt that will be your new favourite layering piece. And a very fun jumper for £54. Read on for the lowdown. Continue reading...
Ditching the traditional suit and tie for understated all black ‘is as calculated as any Westminster suit, just aimed at a different audience’ With Labour blocking Andy Burnham from returning as an MP, the so-called “king of the north” came out wearing a simple black V-neck jumper with dark denim jeans. The Greater Manchester mayor, appearing at the launch of a Class Ceiling report at the city’s Whitworth gallery on Monday, looked quietly, subtly, the outsider. It might not sound like much. But that is the point of Burnham’s largely unnoteworthy look, which tends to involve Left Bank intellectual-adjacent black-on-black. In direct contrast to his tie-wearing colleagues in parliament, Burnham’s style feels particularly symbolic. Continue reading...
In 20 years, Danish capital’s fashion week has pushed for greener standards and catapulted homegrown talent to global success When it comes to fashion weeks, there used to be four key cities: New York, London, Milan and Paris. While they remain titleholders, a host of other cities from Berlin to Seoul and Lagos have been vying for the same recognition to become “the fifth fashion week”. But so far only one real winner has emerged: Copenhagen fashion week. On Tuesday, the Danish showcase, which has helped catapult homegrown brands including Ganni into the international spotlight while spearheading sustainability initiatives, kicked off the start of its 20th-anniversary celebrations. Continue reading...
Whether Vinted’s to blame or TikTok’s to thank, people are flocking back to car parks in search of secondhand bargains. How did the car boot get hip again? It’s a crisp Sunday morning in south-west London. Tucked within rows of terrace houses, the playground of a primary school has been transformed into an outdoor treasure trove. Tables are filled with stacks of books and board games; clothes hang from metal racks or are piled into boxes which are strewn over a hopscotch. It’s the 10am opening of Balham car boot sale. A modest queue filters through the entrance: families, pensioners, fashion influencers, TikTokers. Three friends – Dominique Gowie, Abbie Mitchell (both 25 years old) and Affy Chowdhury (26) – arrived an hour earlier, to set up. They are selling at a car boot for the first time, enticed by the growing hype circulating on social media. “If you go out and say: ‘Oh I bought this at the car boot,’ I think it’s actually cooler than saying I bought this on Asos,” says Dominique. Continue reading...
It is a little weird that beauty culture is convincing people to surgically saw off their facial skin and sew it back on tighter Tell us: what are the best and worst gifts you’ve ever received? Dear Ugly, I’m 36 and I don’t need or want a facelift – but lately I feel like I’m being made to want a facelift. Is it weird that facelifts are becoming normalized for women my age, or am I being too judgmental? Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’? How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done I want to ignore beauty culture. But I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t look a certain way Continue reading...
There are a totally different set of rules for jackets, but a coat should be well below your knees I shouldn’t tell you this, because I’m effectively doing myself out of a job, but there’s really only one thing you need to know about fashion this season. I mean, there are a thousand and one ways to tie a scarf or curate your necklaces or layer your knitwear – and I fully intend to bend your ear about all of them over the coming months – but at a pinch you could follow this single dictum, ignore absolutely all of the rest of it and be good to go. Your coat needs to be long. That’s it, that’s the big news. If your coat reaches almost to your ankles, you will look as if you know your stuff style-wise. Like your hairstyle or the width of your jeans, the length of your coat is one of those details that is a fashion tell. It does not lie. It gives you away, for better or for worse. Someone walking towards you will register it, and it will place you on the style spectrum before they are close enough to see your face. Continue reading...
Straight-cut denims are fast becoming the timeless antidote to fashion’s relentless trend cycle When it comes to fashion power struggles, there is no greater battle than the one between baggy and skinny jeans. But now a new style is emerging, or is it an old one? Goldilocks jeans – ie straight cut – have made a comeback. Think Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor, rather than Jeremy Clarkson’s bootcut Top Gear era or an indie band’s painted-on pip-squeezers. Continue reading...
Rain might be a given, but soggy ensembles don’t have to be. Our fashion expert shares her top tips for staying puddle-proof and polished • The best women’s waterproof jackets for every type of adventure, tested Rain in the UK isn’t so much a weather event as it is a national characteristic, from misty drizzle that clings to your hair and glasses to the sudden downpour that soaks you to the bone. The British weather may never lose its talent for inconvenient timing, but that doesn’t have to rob you of your style. The key to a good wet-weather wardrobe? Incorporating a few pragmatic purchases into your everyday wear (along with prepping what you have already) so that when the heavens inevitably open, at least you’re well armed. Continue reading...
There’s no pressure, no expectations … and if you want to try something a little out-there, well, go nuts It is strange that we talk about date-night dressing so much when we all know that the most fun nights to outfit-plan are really nights out with friends. Well, not actually strange at all, just the patriarchy doing what it does, I guess, and making it feel as if the world as seen from a male point of view – in this case, the view of a frock from the other side of a restaurant table on date night – is automatically the point of view that matters. In a fashion context, it just makes no sense. I mean, I accept that I’m generalising wildly here, and I don’t for a moment claim to speak for everyone. But my own experience, which I would wager is a fairly common one, is that it is an evening out with friends when I’m going to get maximum appreciation for the fashion content of my outfit. Men just want you to look … nice? Which is fine, but there’s a lot more to style than that. Like I say, I am generalising, and not all dates are boy-girl anyway, but still: for many women, dressing up for friends is one of life’s under-appreciated joys. Continue reading...