Why Jackie magazine is the new fashion bible
GREETINGS from the cold, rainy shows in Paris where — surprise, surprise — winter has finally hit. The weather is throwing its nastiest at us and the shops have already cleared out their coats in the January sales, so we’re left coping with what we’ve got.
Standing outside the shows being buffeted by icy blasts, the inside-out umbrella may be the most obvious fashion must-have. But believe me, as the fashion pack huddle together for warmth, other more pleasing trends are emerging.
This crowd has a knack for stealthily assimilating autumn’s ideas into t heir wardrobe now — putting together sweaters, scarves, gloves and boots in a catwalk-fresh way — and there is more than a whiff of the hit Seventies magazine Jackie about it.
For starters, polo-necks are back. A friend of mine turned up wearing one under what I jokingly termed a tank top.
we’re both old enough to shriek with laughter about our memories of the Bay City Rollers and The osmonds.
But she did look good — ‘I’ll have you know, this is Prada!’ she mock-huffed.
For, to the amusement of all former Jackie magazine readers, we are about to have our moment.
NOT only is Jackie the Musical in the works, but next winter’s i nternational fashion is full of all kinds of very familiar glam rock and pop references.
If you were a teenybopper (oh yes, they called us that) between 1970 and 75, all of it — every cork-soled wedge, petrol blue, over-the-knee platform boot, cheesecloth smock or flounced maxi — will seem f amiliar f rom the stylised fashion drawings we all pored over in Jackie.
Actually, I’ll go as far as to say it was Jackie’s unsung illustrators (they were never credited) who got me into fashion in the first place.
I learned how to put on eyeshadow f rom their f amous ‘draw a half-moon in the socket’ diagrams. In fact, I still don’t know any other way to do it.
Part of the resurgence has to do with the death of David Bowie. Young designers have clearly been Googling every look of that era, and the clothes are now being sent down the runway i n no particularly accurate historical order.
on the keeping warm front, it’s the scarves I’ ve been zooming in on.
Perhaps I only have to mention Stevie Nicks in Fleetwood Mac or Robert Plant i n Led Zeppelin to trigger a memory of the type of scarf I’m talking about?
Such scarves — long, skinny, and traily — have been worn at Missoni and Roberto Cavalli shows as part of head-to-toe lean, louche looks — along with maxi coats, dresses and velvet flares.
Frankly, the whole shebang would l ook absurd on any grown woman, but the l ong, narrow scarf can be safely extracted.
Tomas Maier, creative director of Bottega Veneta, emerged as Fashion week’s hero of sensible styling when he showed tailored coats and trouser- suits with long, narrow scarves in matching tones. Nothing retro about that — it looked like a chic, modern solution with not even the slightest whiff of patchouli about it.
The High Street has been quick on the uptake, too: Asos has a classic rock-chick, skinny scarf at £8; Topshop has one in green, brown and blush stripes, £12; while River Island went for a Seventies, retro-patterned number for £10.
I also think that big, blankety, knitted scarves are poised to make a comeback.
THROWS, serapes — women of my generati on will have to forgive the terminology, but no new term has been invented for those brightly coloured Mexican scarves since the Eighties, the last time they were in fashion.
At the time, they were used as wraps to go over huge, s houlder- padded j ackets, since no coat was big enough. Now, they are a good in-between- seasons stop gap for this horrendous blast of glacial weather.
The shoulders, I warn, are coming back, too, but that’s another story . . .