Style Counsel
JUST as I was not only coming to terms with the whole Nineties revival but literally buying into it (see my recent haul of slip dresses from Zara), the fashion world has decreed that the Noughties are where it is at.
Are your eyes rolling as hard as mine?
When it comes to taste, the first decade of the Millennium was surely up there with the Seventies. It had none.
I know this because those years covered the bulk of my 20s – a period when I was best summed up as easily influenced and – for the first time in my adult life – flush(ish).
A hazardous combination. A bit like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan around that time.
Ten years or so before the birth of Instagram and ‘influencers’ and egged on by fashion magazines and celebrities, I bought, and wore, all sorts of trashy, flashy and generally ill-advised fashion items.
I was reminded of this during yet another of my wardrobe clearouts.
Something was preventing a shoebox from laying flat. On closer inspection it turned out to be a maroon and sky blue Von Dutch trucker cap.
Anyone who knows me now will attest that nothing about me screams trucker cap. And yet, at some point around 2004 I decided that my life would be incomplete unless I was rocking headgear more fitting the driver of an 18-wheeler.
I am laying that one at the door of Madonna and Gwen Stefani, my Noughties idols, rather than Katie Price who was also a fan of the look.
And it didn’t stop there. Juicy Couture tracksuits? Well, I had a high street lookalikey. A Prada bowling bag was out of my price range but luckily Topshop came out with an excellent version.
There was a lot of ripped denim and it goes without saying that I got my midriff out. Way too often.
Almost 20 years on from some of my worst fashion crimes, many of these trends are making their way back into the mainstream.
Current ‘It’ girls like Dua Lipa, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin have been spotted wearing some of the era’s signature pieces inlcuding the caps and the baggy jeans, while #Y2Kfashion has been trending on social media for months.
Call it age. Call it wisdom. Call it what you want, but I can confidently say I will be giving this particular fashion cycle round a miss.
Not even Kate Moss donning them at London Fashion Week will get me back in a pair of bootcut jeans.
Technically they are more of a flare these days though...
I KNOW we are supposed to be focussing on the fact that under Rishi Sunak, Brits are dealing with an unparalleled peacetime tax burden and that knocking 80p off a bottle of prosecco will do little to help working parents. But I just can’t let his choice of footwear this week... ahem... slide.
Not when female politicians’ fashion choices have been picked apart for decades.
‘Behind the scenes’ pictures released of the Chancellor in the lead up to Wednesday’s Budget showed the 41-year-old in his civvies of grey sweater and relaxed slacks. On his feet a pair of £95 Palm Angels sliders.
The choice of a brand that is generally favoured by athletes and hip hop stars is questionable enough on a former Goldman Sachs banker who is about as ‘street’ as Mary Berry, but he only went and teamed them with socks.
Perhaps he genuinely thought it was a cool look. Perhaps he was trying and failing to be ironic.
Whatever the case, it was less Dishy Rishy and more naff naff.