Repeat, c’est chic: how to re-style your old party outfits like a pro
’Tis the season to follow the celebrities and revive those great big-night-out successes, says Caroline Leaper
The chic thing to say when someone compliments your outfit at a party this year? It’s not, “why thanks, it’s from [insert wildly expensive designer name]”. It’s also definitely not, “it was a steal, I paid £4.50 for it”. For 2021, the best answer is: “I’ve had it for years and worn it a dozen times before.”
Every year, the festive fashion season seems to kickstart a national compulsion to buy new things. 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.
Does 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. 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.
A sprinkling of high-profile women now seem committed to removing the stigma from “re-wearing”. 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. 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). And Cate Blanchett is a serial red carpet re-wearer.
An act that was once considered parsimonious is now a bragging point. Most thought that wearing something old made them look old – outdated, and not up to speed with what’s new in the shops. These days it shows a superior level of fashion intelligence. It says: “I’ve got a wardrobe full of considered, timeless, quality purchases.” In other words, “I don’t wear tat.”
“It’s chic to repeat,” Elizabeth Stewart, Blanchett’s stylist, said recently. “I usually wear the same dress 20 times,” Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue, has boasted. “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. Recycle.”
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. But to dismiss the global phobia of re-wearing as a celebrity problem would be to underestimate it. 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. 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. 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.
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. The annual party fashion trends are some of the most cyclical of all. Somehow, jewel tones, velvet, lurex, metallics, sequins and crystal-like embellishments never look passé.
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 metalliclook heels. Buying new bling every year is problematic – the more wear you can get out of something, the less environmental damage you’ll ultimately do.
How many re-wears is too many? There’s no limit. 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. Updating an old outfit is simple. You can wear that faithful sequinned black dress in exactly the same way as you did in 2019, of course. But there are transformative styling tricks to try too.
This time add different tights, or a slimline “under top” layer, as per Le Bon. Do your hair differently and wear statement earrings, like the Duchess. Treat a dress like a skirt, with a jazzy jacket or a looser sparkly knit covering the upper half. And who’s paying any attention to your faithful, flattering black-top-and-trousers combination, when you’ve got a pair of bold-colour, jewelled kitten heels on?
If you are injecting one new item into your party capsule wardrobe, remember to buy less and buy better. Investing in that one timeless piece – classic jewelled shoes, or a well-made black silk velvet top – will pay dividends for years. Far more so than ordering a cheap sequinned number on next-day delivery that you’ll later find has shed its sparkle all over the bedroom floor.
I won’t lie. In sticking a new bow on a gift of an old outfit, you’re not going to convince everyone that your whole look is brand new. But feel good in the knowledge that by doing very little (no dash to the shops, no fear of finding an ill-fitting dress), you’re now a style leader. Someone’s got to go first – watch out for the ripples across the dancefloor as your bold act of rebellion gives others permission to do the same.