Wear your underwear as trousers ... it’s fashionable, British Vogue expert claims

WEARING underpants as trousers has been predicted to become the new year’s hot new fashion trend by a Vogue executive.

Julia Hobbs, British Vogue’s acting European fashion features director, said that the trend of underwear-as-outerwear represented “people wanting to be themselves in how they dress”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, she said: “I think what we’re seeing now is a sort of return to very elemental dressing and we’re seeing this revival of a very 1960s look, which is wearing a pair of simple black briefs over a pair of tights.”

Her comments come after Emma Corrin raised eyebrows after they appeared at the Venice Film Festival in the look, which was labelled as avantgarde at the time. But now it appears many are following in Corrin’s footsteps after Ms Hobbs explained: “Barely a week goes by where we don’t get the celebrity notifications or see on Instagram celebrities wearing a jumper just with a pair of tights or a jacket with a bare leg.”

The Vogue fashion expert said that she loves to see people – “regardless of gender” – tagging her on social media when “they’re out and about in their underwear”.

Corrin, best known for playing Princess Diana in The Crown, wore the statement look at the Venice Film Festival in September – sporting a prim Miu Miu khaki cardigan and matching double-layered pants. The actor, who revealed their non-binary gender identity in 2021, also walked in the fashion label’s Paris Fashion Week show wearing a similarly revealing look consisting of a beige turtleneck sweater and sequin gold pants.

Miu Miu’s creative director Miuccia Prada previously told Vogue of the knickers-only look: “I love it! If I were younger, I would go out in panties!”

Ms Hobbs road tested the statement fashion choice herself to the Vogue offices in August, wearing the same gold Miu Miu embroidered beaded silk briefs Corrin debuted on the runway – a pair of outerwear knickers that retail for £3,750.

“My sparkly knickers were a particularly special pair ... they were very heavy and they were a pair of Miu Miu knickers designed by Mrs Prada … it’s sort of like wearing a sequined diaper,” she quipped. “I road tested them during a very warm day at the end of August and I wore them on the tube, I wore them to the Vogue offices.”

She said that it was received “with very little surprise” at Vogue’s offices, where employees are accustomed to avant-garde get-ups, but said she got “a couple of quizzical looks on the tube”.

Ms Hobbs told Woman’s Hour: “It’s a look that was associated – or is perhaps most famously associated – with Edie Sedgwick,” she explained of the late American actress and fashion model who was one of Andy Warhol’s superstars. It’s a look that was seen almost through the prism of wellness culture [ballet], a look that was sporty became almost edgy and hedonistic in her hands.

“She’s one of the most famous proponents of the look, but actually if we rewind a little bit earlier to 1960 there’s a wonderful Marilyn Monroe moment in the film Let’s Make Love.”

‘It’s sort of like wearing a sequined diaper ... I got a couple of quizzical looks on the tube’