The backlash against breasts and other 2016 fashion moments
Ask HadleyFashionCleavage was out this year (in the right sense) and so, for a while, was Kate Moss’s boyfriend – and there was one very sad farewellWhat should I wear to my boss’s Christmas party tomorrow night?
Shelley, by email
Zzzzzip! Record scratch! Sorry to interrupt, folks: normal service will be resumed next week, but this week we celebrate the festive season by going through the best and worst fashion moments of the year. Honestly, it’s what Jesus wanted us to do. He said so, right after he ticked off John the Baptist for his hopelessly passé robe. “Bias cut is soooo BC, John,” he said, as the two of them strolled along the river Jordan. Maybe. I might be less clear on my New Testament than my Vogue.
Let’s start with the downers. Well, it was a strange year. Breasts, for a start, we consigned to the bin. Vogue decreed that cleavage was “over”, and the adoring shots of Elizabeth Debicki’s frequently bra-strap-free back in The Night Manager seemed to confirm this. Rather sweetly, Vogue tried to pretend that theirs was a feminist declaration: “The tits will not be out for the lads. Nor anyone else, for that matter.” How marvellous! No longer will women suffer the tyranny of Eva Herzigova because a whole new body shape will be celebrated. Hurrah for the inclusivity of fashion! Go feminist fashion! Bog off, boobs!
Wait, what’s that noise? I think it might be a giant “EXCEPT” coming down the pipeline. EXCEPT perhaps it is because Vogue lives in an airless world populated only by the underfed and underweight but it seemed, rather sweetly, to have forgotten that not all women need Wonderbras to manage more than a C-cup. Breasts are not, in fact, just some novelty accessory we’ve been dabbling in, like Carrie necklaces or turbans. Going unsupported is not an option for some of us, at least not without giving ourselves two black eyes. So what to do for us, the unlucky few left with unfashionable breasts that can’t simply be slammed away in a drawer? One broadsheet had the answer: “How to dress when you hate your breasts,” read its headline. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is I believe what’s known as coming full circle.
We also hit peak athleisure, with the arrival of Chloé’s £1,000 tracksuit, a joke straight out of Nathan Barley. There was also peak squad, with various female celebrities clamouring on social media to show off their popularity, holidays and fat-free bodies, from Taylor Swift’s overly Instagrammed 4 July party to Cara Delevingne’s hyperbolically Instagrammed Maldives holiday. Confusingly, we also hit peak peak, so it is of utmost importance that someone come up with the 2017 word for something being over (“basic” is definitely over, as, incidentally, is over).
All right, quit your complaining already, woman! What has been good this year? Glad you ask, I reply to myself. Well, by some measure, my favourite fashion(ish) news story of the year was the undoubtedly totally true one about Kate Moss dumping her boyfriend, the great great grandson of Otto von Bismarck, after he switched off the Wi-Fi in Moss’s home during an argument, meaning her teenage daughter couldn’t use Snapchat and Instagram. You can imagine how that went down with a 14-year-old. Try to find one element in that story that doesn’t bring you some modicum of amusement. I know! You literally can’t! Anyway, young Von Bismarck and Moss are back together so not only is this story hilarious, it also has a happy ending. Whether Moss’s daughter feels the return of the Wi-Fi killer is a happy ending, however, is as yet unknown.
Otherwise, the year was really about two labels – Vetements and Gucci. My much-beloved colleague Jess Cartner-Morley wrote about Vetements’ year last week, so indulge me instead in my Gucci obsession. Put it this way: there are two kinds of fashion fans: the cool ones, and the ones who get distracted with funny things such as embroidered leopards and purple shoes. If you are cool, you like Vetements, and if you are more in the latter camp then you are a Gucci person and God bless you and Gucci’s designer, Alessandro Michele, for it. Fashion hasn’t been this fun since Marc Jacobs used to be fun.
The return of the 90s has been quite amusing-slash-traumatic for those of us who remember the 90s very, very clearly. There’s something about seeing a teenager in a slip dress and jumper to make you muse on your youth. And there’s nothing like realising said teenager wasn’t even alive in the 90s to make you realise how long ago the 90s were.
Finally, I’d like to end this retrospective column by bidding a sad farewell to a fashion item I very much hoped would be a part of all of our lives for the next four to eight years. I speak, of course, of Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits. Remember them? One in every colour! So cheering, so dependable. Never mind your politics (although you’re reading the Guardian, so who are we kidding here?), wouldn’t you rather be seeing those pantsuits on the news than that orange face and tonsorial monstrosity? My heart hurts just thinking about those pantsuits, to be honest. So forget about those Hadid sisters: 2016 was about the pantsuit. But not 2017, alas.
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