ESCAPING INTO FASHION

In this age global uncertainty, clothes have become a kind of panacea for a growing number of consumers. Designers are responding to the political upheavals of the past year by injecting some much-needed humor into women’s wardrobes.

BrownsCEOHolli Rogers is already predicting that spring’s sartorial hit will be Rosie Assoulin’s smiley-face T-shirt. This cheery number, which reads “Thank you! Have a Nice Day!” neatly sums up the jubilant mood of the coming season.

We may not be able to control the chaos of world events, but we still rule our own style.

It’s no coincidence that a cartoonish aesthetic, of the sort you’d find if you rifled through an eccentric child’s dressing-up box, was in plentiful supply on the 2017 spring/summer runways.

Alessandro Michele’s army of Gucci geeks displayed growing swagger in garish get-ups that ran from fuzzy crayon-colored furs featuring zebras to tiered, tinsel-y coats that rivaled grandma’s Christmas tree.

It was a similar story at Dolce & Gabbana, where sumptuous evening wear was loaded with pasta and pizza motifs, and drums became bags, while Marc Jacobs tore a page from a psychedelic coloring book, covering clothes with the childlike scrawl of the London illustrator Julie Verhoeven. Even ardent minimalists would have to admit that these playful looks have potent pick-me-up power.

For Anya Hindmarch — whose empire is built on feelgood fashion— all this frivolity is nothing new.

“An ironic, lighter and more irreverent approach has always been my thing. People love beautiful objects and increasingly, they want to show their character — that’s the point of fashion,” she says. “Customers today are more confident with their style. There aren’t so many rules. It’s about putting a sticker on a beautiful handbag and not being too precious about it.”

What’s surprising is who is consuming this cartoonish style. Though there’s no real rhyme or reason, says Hindmarch, often it’s older clients who are investing in the maddest pieces — like her cuddly, googly-eyed Ghost backpack that has also been spotted on Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner.

The same is true of the customer for Lebanese designer Mira Mikati’s emoji-embellished styles. Though her fans run from their 20s to 50s, at a recent London pop-up one of Mikati’s most ardent buyers was an 87-year-old. Mikati began her career as

buyer, co-founding the a of upscale Beirut boutique Plum before launching her own line some four seasons ago — largely out of frustration at the sameness of the mainstream collections.

“I wanted to create something fun and colorful but easy to wear — that you can

of the sort you may find in kids’ dressing-up box, is in plentiful supply on the 2017 spring/summer runways as well as on the street in the real world.

A cartoonish aesthetic,