PLAY THE CLASSICS

The irrepressible allure of a classic sensibility has meant anti-statement pieces are the boldest style declaration this season. By Alice Birrell.

OF ALL THE conveniences afforded by the world we live in, there is one that has us particularly vexed. TED Talker and marketing professor Baba Shiv illustrated the issue with two groups of students in a famous study: one was given a plethora of tea flavours to choose from, the other a meagre few, before each group was tasked with solving puzzles. The group given fewer choices of tea were proficient puzzle-solvers, unencumbered by any doubt they had just made the wrong selection, while those faced with multiple sorts solved far fewer puzzles. Oh, options.

We are all in a mire of fashion choices in 2019, standing in front of a tower of clothes, and the impulse is to turn away. With the abundance in front of us – Frills! Volume! Shoes dripping in crystals! Leopard capes! 3D roses! – our focus blurs and our direction is more likely to be rudderless. Add in fast fashion, and our constant exposure to new style propositions on our phone screens, and it’s no wonder there is a hankering for something else.

Should proof be required, look first to Balenciaga. Where once he sent out stooping models in fetish rubber, dad trainers and fluorescent Lycra, Demna Gvasalia underwent a true aesthetic decluttering for autumn/winter ’19/’20. A razor-sharp suit all in black opened the show, hitting the hips at the sweet spot, skimming the toes just-so, the front pleats on the trousers and lapels so crisp they may as well have been done under a hydraulic press. It was a tailoring bullseye. “It’s real,” Gvasalia told Vogue Runway after the show. “When I’m on the streets of Paris, that’s what I see.”

Real, and elegant, and although Gvasalia is not reinventing the wheel, he’s joined by a raft of designers aiming to refine the classics. Note the rise of labels that have made their way by taking a single focus, such as on denim, tailoring, knits, coats or leather. Think Blazé Milano’s blazers, the Knitter’s jumpers, Stand’s coats, Ienki Ienki’s puffers or Batsheva’s dresses.

Giuliva Heritage Collection, founded by Italian husband and wife duo Margherita Cardelli and Gerardo Cavaliere, shared Cavaliere’s simple bespoke tailored suits and coats before deciding to make their own. “Our first offering focused on iconic styles such as the trench, the 90s camel double-breasted coat, the sleek single-breasted and the velvet shawl-collar,” says Cavaliere. They started with six coat styles and now cater to a growing base of customers who return to buy their luxurious worsted-wool trenches, hunting blazers and trousers made from Italian, English and