C’mon get happy!

Fashion’s new mood is… sunshine and rainbows and joy and laughter – so leave your pout at home and start smiling

THE NUMBER ONE RULE OF COOL

– a concept that is otherwise almost impossible to define – is never, ever look like you’re enjoying yourself too much. Sulk, smoke, perfect a faint whiff of disdain and boredom – just don’t give the impression that you’re, you know, having fun. That was, until now.

ALL HAIL QUEEN CELINE

This year saw the assent of the unlikeliest of fashion icons: Céline Dion. The power-ballad crooner proved her chops as a fashion power-mover too, stepping out in everything from Saint Laurent’s leather sweetheart-necked top to Dior haute couture, to the Vetements Titanic hoodie

(a genius meta move there). But it wasn’t just what she was wearing, it was how she was wearing it – with an unbridled enthusiasm and sheer, utter joy. She was having capital F fun in capital F fashion – and suddenly the rest of us just looked a bit, serious.

‘She is such a fashion girl if I’ve ever met one. She loves it!’ her stylist Law Roach explains. He’s witnessed the Céline-effect first-hand. ‘What I’ve been hearing from people is that watching Céline over the summer made them happy because she seems so happy. The world is such a scary place, to have even a moment of something to take your mind away from that and make you smile and chuckle a bit is powerful. I think we do need that,’ he says, adding that Céline, just like another of his clients, Zendaya, has ‘no fear, no fear at all. They do it for themselves, they really don’t give a fuck what people have to say’.

What might have started as an ironic appreciation on our part has grown into a genuine, if curious, love affair. Céline is the icon the world needs now; the epitome of good vibes, her rise up the fashion ranks coincides with the revival of a sense of fun in what we’re wearing. This season, there are endless options you could see Dion letting rip with: opulent brocades, glitter-ball embellishments, overblown polka dots, sculptural silhouettes, bold hues…

DOPAMINE DESIGNERS

In the same way Christopher Kane’s gaudy neons shocked us out of a gloomy recession-trance a decade ago, an exciting new guard is bringing fresh dynamism into the fashion scene: Charles Jeffrey’s gender-subverting Loverboy label, Matty Bovan’s energetic knitwear and Michael Halpern’s slinky, sequin-adorned pieces worthy of a modern-day Studio 54. Just try wearing those pieces and not having fun.

Even the bastions of serious luxury are at it. At (the other) Céline, for instance, models clutched huge, comforting blankets, some woven-with greasy-spoon-style menus. Jam roly-poly, anyone? At Balenciaga, Demna Gvasalia continued to pump his irony-laden interpretation of Parisian style. And, of course, there is Alessandro Michele’s sensory-overload Gucci, where clashing eclecticism has set a new standard for cool. According to William Banks-blaney of luxury emporium William Vintage, ‘Not since the ’60s have we seen this kind of opulence and fun in fashion.’ THE SHOWS You could see this party spirit on the catwalks, from Molly Goddard’s dinner party mise en scène, where guests were encouraged to interact, to Dolce & Gabbana’s epic production, which cast 140 friends of the brand to walk in the show. At Stella Mccartney models even burst into a rendition of George Michael’s

Faith.Faith ‘It was such an unexpected and joyful moment that filled the room with positive energy,’ says Selfridges director of womenswear, Lydia King, who has bought heavily into Issey Miyake rainbow pieces and Attico’s sequin wrap dresses this season.

LOVE TRUMPS HATE

It might sound like a party, but there’s a serious undertone to all this. In a post-trump, post-brexit world where everything from nuclear war to the alt-right feel like very tangible threats, fashion – and, in particular, optimistic fashion – can provide a port in the storm. Ashish Gupta, whose A/W ’17 collection was a feel-good sensation, a riot of Mexican wrestling masks and blingedup Americana, sees this new aesthetic as a direct reaction: ‘We need it in these dark, depressing and ridiculous times we are living in. Rainbows only happen in rainy weather. Martin Luther King Jr said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” I think we need more love, more fun, we need to be more sparkly, more queer, more loud, more proud.’

Indeed, much like the way lipstick sales soar in a depression or the fantasy of New Romantic dressing sprang out

WE NEED TO BE MORE SPARKLY, MORE QUEER, MORE LOUD, MORE PROUD