J-LO brings back the wrap dress
THE WRAP DRESS has been in dire need of a new PR for years. It didn’t matter how many flippy, flirty versions from French brands attempted to woo us, for most of us it was cancelled. Too mumsy. Too tricky. Too safe. Indeed, if you are a woman of a certain age and bra size (30+, anything over a B-cup), it will be indelibly associated with just one thing: What Not To Wear, the early noughties Trinny and Susannah-helmed TV show that manhandled us all into the idea that if we were bountifully-boobed it was our obligation to wear them.
Now, however, some reputation restoration for the wrap courtesy of J-LO– a woman who really knows the power of a great dress. She’s swapped her lockdown sweats for something a little more elevated: a jersey Valentino style (£1,890, Mytheresa).
The reason this one looks so great is that it moves away from the naff noughties versions and instead harks back to the dress’s ’70s heyday (the print is taken from the Valentino archives – ‘Next season’s ’70s revival is the perfect time to dig them out again,’ says Mytheresa’s fashion buying director, Tiffany Hsu). Back then, it was Diane von Furstenberg who gave us the OG wrap, heralding it as a do-it-all solution for the modern woman. They could be dressed up or down, put on or slipped off (wink, wink) with ease. Just google pics of DVF from back then to see how great they look.
The wrap dress revival is particularly timely now. We’re currently existing in a fashion No Man’s Land, suspended somewhere between lockdown and real life. If you’re still working from home, the wrap dress is the perfect purgatorial hack: fluid yet fitted, means-the-business but takes less time to throw on than even a tracksuit, often peppily printed to add a little oomph to endless video calls.
Consider their versatility. ‘We often style them as a jacket or kimono over jeans or skirts,’ says Henrietta Rix, co-founder of Rixo, which does an excellent selection of exuberantly printed bias-cut styles. ‘It’s a piece you can wear in your kitchen on a lazy Sunday or on holiday over your bikini.’
‘The midi-with-trainers revolution of recent years has given the wrap dress new life, in my opinion,’ says The Times’ fashion editor, Harriet Walker. ‘What used to feel a bit vintage-frumpy or overly feminine and wedding guest-esque has become a reliable and comfortable thing you can sling on in the morning, whether for work or at the weekend.’ She adds that the fabric can be a problem – ‘too little of it or too stretchy and they just whip open to show your pants’ – and advises styles with a decent amount of volume. Side note: if you don’t like showing off your cleavage, wear over a tee. That versatility also translates to who can wear them. ‘It’s such a classic shape that looks amazing on everyone,’ says Ditte Reffstrup, creative director of Ganni, which has long been on a mission to make the wrap dress cool again. ‘What we do is all about making people feel like they are capable of anything.
It’s about making people feel comfortable in their own skin, wearing things your own way. The wrap dress is a perfect example of that.’ So this, then, in a year that’s been full of surprises: come back wrap dresses, all is forgiven.