The new glam-casual: how to dress down your dressy pieces
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Eighties. Vaccarello has said: “I always relate YSL to parties, to evening.” For this autumn that means tiny curvy dresses in shining leather or velvet and ker-pow rhinestone knee-high boots.
Also bringing sexy back are new evening brands like Galvan, Attico and Michael Halpern, labels making clothes for going out out. Gucci meanwhile has gone a different route, mixing colour, luxury textures and embroidery techniques to create an eccentric glamour in the style of Iris Apfel – to great commercial success.
The secret of that success lies not in the head-to-toe, maximalist styling of Gucci catwalk shows, which in real life would make your children run screaming, but in the way the label provides statement separates and accessories that will add pop and interest to jeans or a pleated skirt. It’s glamour but tempered by all those styling lessons we’ve been learning since 2007. Call it Glam-casual, a new dressing up underpinned by something street-style, something sporty, something understated. That may take the form of a zip-up sweater with long floaty chiffon. Or a hip-hop-worthy giant duvet coat worn with a tweed skirt.
At Dries Van Noten, models of all ages wore bright geometric printed velvet coats with turned-up straight-legged jeans and flat lace-ups. Chloe performed an unheard of feat, managing to turn the shell-suit into a silky desirable luxury item.