FASHION ICON WHO GETS IT SO WRONG
PHOEBE WallerBridge’s emotionally bruised, sexually confused, did-she-really-say-that Fleabag, is not only the love-object of the moment but also the current style pin-up.
If it’s good enough for Fleabag, it’s good enough for a great many of us, looking at the sales figures of products that featured in the BBC show.
Waller-Bridge both wrote and starred in the comedy series about a young middle-class woman and her family.
It was an unexpected success when it hit screens in 2016 and had an audience of millions for the second, and final series, which concluded last week.
From episode one, Fleabag confirmed a taking-no-hostages approach to her wardrobe. An appealing mixture of out-there sexy combined with a plain Jane
girlishness. Confusing – but in a good way. Just like her character. Fleabag’s appeal is that she is so wrong she is right. She says and does the things we might all consider – and would usually discard.
Flirting with (and bedding) a priest, tormenting her freakishly uptight sister, waging war with her ghastly stepmother-to-be. If there’s a dodgy place to put your foot, she finds it.
Waller-Bridge is a classic beauty; tall, slender, swan-necked, porcelain-skinned – with millennial attitude.
Fleabag, who is less patrician in style than her creator, nonetheless benefits from Waller-Bridge’s inescapable good looks. She carries off 24/7 red lipstick, manages a gorgeous wavy bob and what about those gleaming white teeth?
So it was a shrewd move by costume designer Ray Holman (also responsible for Jodie Whittaker’s original style in Doctor Who and the clothes in chiller Apple Tree Yard) to keep Fleabag relatable with a wardrobe we can all identify with.
A book could be written on That Black Jumpsuit of the first episode alone. Halter-necked and plunging to the waist, it was a masterpiece of silent positioning. It announced Fleabag as the selfobsessed, scene-stealing character she is, by wearing something so inappropriate and over-the-top for a family dinner to celebrate her father’s engagement.
But at the same time she looks bold, captivating and irresistible, even more so by wearing it with a pair of grubby sneakers.
Despite backless jumpsuits being a tricky look to carry off, the €53 item by Love sold out immediately.
Holman also makes a feature of Waller-Bridge’s endless legs, giving her hemlines like that of the red ruffle Reformation dress she wears for the last episode’s wedding party. Or her denim and leather mini skirts, which are always a smidgeon too short for her height, permanently risking up-skirting (a dominant feature of her many appearances waiting at the bus stop) but simultaneously giving her a coltish carelessness.
She wears sheer black tights with her knicker-grazing minis. Is that referencing the Saint Laurent catwalk staple – or just weird? It’s up to us to decide.
She has a penchant for dungaree straps that are decidedly unglamorous but on Fleabag have a cheeky schoolgirl touch.
That jumpsuit aside, Fleabag is a trend-free zone. Unlike that other screen-heroine Villanelle, the designer clothes obsessive from Killing Eve, who wears outfits straight off the catwalk.
Not for her the wafting dresses and handkerchief hems of Instagram influencers or the saggy paper bag trousers, brightly coloured trouser suits and knife-pleat midi skirts currently flooding the shops.
Instead, because we love the woman – even the mismatched mundanity of her clothes has become as aspirational as a Balenciaga trainer.