Treat a dress like a skirt, with a jazzy jacket or a looser sparkly knit covering the upper half. Do your hair differently and wear statement earrings, like the Duchess. This time add different tights, or a slimline “under top” layer, as per Le Bon. But there are transformative styling tricks to try too. You can wear that faithful sequinned black dress in exactly the same way as you did in 2019, of course. Between all the different crowds you’ll see at this time of year and all the nuanced scenarios (from dressed-up cocktails with colleagues to cosy dinners with friends), you can keep re-spinning and re-wearing over and over again. How many re-wears is too many? There’s no limit. Buying new bling every year is problematic – the more wear you can get out of something, the less environmental damage you’ll ultimately do. Putting on the glitz, typically, means wearing some form of plastic, whether it’s a dress covered in glitter, a blouse made of polyester satin, or a pair of metallic-look heels. Somehow, jewel tones, velvet, lurex, metallics, sequins and crystal-like embellishments never look passé.
The annual party fashion trends are some of the most cyclical of all. In the run-up to Christmas, many will panic and buy new spangly outfits, but like any one of the songs that are defrosted year after year, there are sartorial party classics. There’s a constant pressure to document your newest, shiniest, “best self”, spurred on ever further by seeing images of both celebrities and real-life friends only ever wearing new clothes. Social media has much to answer for – one in 10 of us will apparently bin an outfit after we’ve been photographed wearing it three times.
In a survey of British people, conducted by environmental charity Hubbub at Christmas in 2019, one in five admitted they wouldn’t wear the same outfit to more than one party or event. But to dismiss the global phobia of re-wearing as a celebrity problem would be to underestimate it. To preach the virtues of wearing one’s clothes more than once as “recycling” and promoting “thriftiness” sounds particularly rich coming from the A-list. “I think it’s always fun to have something new, but it doesn’t mean that everything you already have in your closet has to be thrown out. “I usually wear the same dress 20 times,” Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue, has boasted. “It’s chic to repeat,” Elizabeth Stewart, Blanchett’s stylist, said recently.
It says: “I’ve got a wardrobe full of considered, timeless, quality purchases.” In other words, “I don’t wear tat.”ĭouble breasted Mimi blazer, £250, Silvia lurex jumper, £110, Metallic thread cardigan, £230, uk. Gold vermeil and cubic zirconia earrings, £99, Kitten heel slingbacks, £59.99, These days it shows a superior level of fashion intelligence. Most thought that wearing something old made them look old – outdated, and not up to speed with what’s new in the shops.
And Cate Blanchett is a serial red carpet re-wearer.Īn act that was once considered parsimonious is now a bragging point. Jane Fonda dusted off a white power suit from 1996 for an awards ceremony recently (a reminder that all trends do inevitably come full circle). The supermodel Yasmin Le Bon was pictured at a cocktail reception this month re-styling a Christopher Kane minidress she bought in 2011 with glittery tights and a top layered underneath. Her debut look for the 2021 party season, though, came last week – an emerald sequin Jenny Packham gown, first worn on a royal tour in 2019.Ī sprinkling of high-profile women seem committed to removing the stigma from “re-wearing” this year.
This year especially, given that the pandemic wiped all of 2020’s best-laid party plans, the message to go all out and get dressed up booms louder than ever.ĭoes showing that you’ve made an effort really require you to buy something new, though? No, says the Duchess of Cambridge, for whom dressing for special occasions is a year-round sport. This year, the best answer is: “I’ve had it for years and worn it a dozen times before.”Įvery year, the festive fashion season seems to kick-start a national compulsion to buy new things. It’s also definitely not, “it was a steal, I paid £4.50 for it”. The chic thing to say when someone compliments your outfit at a party this year? It’s not, “why thanks, it’s from ”.