Kate Finnigan
There’s never been a better time to be a scarlet woman
Even if you haven’t read Invitation to the Waltz, Rosamond Lehmann’s coming-of-age novel set in the Twenties, you’ll understand the heroine Olivia’s joy at receiving for her 17th birthday “a roll of flame-coloured silk” from which to make a party dress.
I don’t care whether you’re 17 or 72, the idea of flame-coloured silk – be it roll or ready-made dress – makes the heart skip a beat. And so it was that, back in February, the fashion industry suffered a collective intake of breath at the Gucci autumn/winter 2015 show, when the new creative director, Alessandro Michele, sent out look number 14, a dream of a ruffle-tiered dress in “hibiscus red” silk-georgette. Look 14 summed up the relaxed decadence of this collection, which has in turn come to define the mood of the season. The great genius was to style it with spectacles and underplay a colour that can be potentially problematic. A red dress may be grandiose or brash, but this was neither. (I’ve thought about this – it’s just not possible to call someone in glasses brash). And it was worn with flats for that added librarian appeal. It was – is – a dress that comes with a ready-made nonchalance that belies its almost £3,000 price tag, nonchalance apparently being rather expensive these days.
But this red dress was no lone wolf. A micro-trend in the international collections, red dresses now seem to have blown up into a full-on crimson wave.
From Altuzarra to Zac Posen by way of Burberry, Christopher Kane, Emilia Wickstead, Erdem, Valentino and Osman, designers are producing scores of knockout scarlet numbers. “At every buying appointment we attended for this season someone was showing us a red dress,” says Natalie Kingham, head of fashion at matchesfashion. com. “Red always sells well for us internationally so we really bought into them.” They’ve been selling them, too. Over the summer Kingham’s team had to put in double repeat orders for a long red cotton dress by Loup Charmant and a red dress by Self-Portrait, both still available online.
Meanwhile, the high street is also in the red. Marks & Spencer has already had to restock an initial drop of its red and black lace Per Una Speziale dress. “We’re seeing a strong demand for red,” says a spokesperson, “not just for occasionwear but workwear styles too, such as the suit, and even a jumpsuit.”
But why red? “I love red right now. It’s such an evocative colour,” says Erdem Moralioğlu, who had several red dresses in his autumn collection, including a stunning fitted red guipure lace number with a split up the front. “It’s maybe the most powerful colour because it’s symbolic of so many things – danger, blood, love.”
Kingham believes that the trend for bright digital prints of the previous few years has made women more confident about wearing bright colours and it now “feels fresh” to go for a pure block colour. “Red suits most skin tones,” she points out. “It looks great with a tan and equally if you’re pale.”
Osman Yousefzada, who for autumn sent out 10 pure red looks in a collection of otherwise black and white, thinks that we’re seeing an end to the minimal look that came as a reaction to austerity.
“Elements of couture are returning to fashion,” he says. “Fun is coming back and of course red is a lot of fun. Also with print, which we’ve had a lot of recently, you can’t see the cut, the purity of line in a garment as well. But with a strong block colour you really appreciate the architecture.”
Red dresses haven’t always had such a good press. Chris de Burgh didn’t help in 1986, but it was John who, in Biblical times, began campaigning against it in Revelation 17:5 with his vision of a woman dressed in scarlet, her name – “Mother of Harlots and of the abominations of the earth” – inscribed on her forehead. Poor love. I expect that was the last time she made an effort.
Actually, scarlata in medieval Latin translates as “fine cloth”. It was a fine wool that was made in white, blue, green and brown, as well as carmine red. So it may be that neither the biblical Mother of Harlots nor Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, who tramped around in her “gayest scarlet dress”, were actually wearing the colour we now associate it with.
But the notion of a scarlet woman stuck. Next month sees the release of fashion historian Aileen Ribiero’s book A Portrait of Fashion: Six Centuries of Dress at the National Portrait
Gallery, included in which is Thomas Lawrence’s 1804 portrait of Caroline of Brunswick in a bright red velvet dress and matching hat. “She had married George Prince of Wales in 1795 but the marriage was a disaster and they separated shortly afterwards,” says Ribiero. “She was a boisterous and vulgar woman, by all accounts, and the colour gives her a rather brash look, which is perhaps rather appropriate.”
The colour red, according to Ribiero, didn’t really become popular in women’s dress until the 20th century, “and then notably among artistic and Bohemian circles”, although even they could be uncomfortable in it. In her book she selects Duncan Grant’s portrait of Vanessa Bell in a patterned red cotton dress. “[Bell] complained to her sister Virginia Woolf that people stared at her when she wore such bright colours,” Ribiero recounts, “and Woolf rather deplored them too.”
Times have changed but there can still be a shyness about decking yourself out entirely in red. Last weekend a friend of mine thought hard about wearing a long red dress by the British label Teatum Jones to a wedding. “I did wear it and received a lot of attention but it was the positive kind. It made me feel quite powerful,” she says. “Red is the only colour I wear apart from black or navy. It does all the work for you.”
The secret to wearing it successfully is to choose longer rather than shorter lengths and looser fits. “You want a style that hangs slightly away from the body,” says Kingham. Underdressing it is also key, as Gucci showed, although I’d draw the line at fake specs.
When Cate Blanchett wore the Gucci dress to Singapore Fashion Week last month she swapped the flats for black high heeled courts. Jane Lewis, the founder and designer of the British label Goat, which has beautifully timeless dresses in block colours, including poppy red, likes the idea of dressing a red dress down with “flats in black or dark grey or Miu Miu’s colour block shoes, or a three-quarter length boot.” Bare legs or dark slate grey tights (yes, it’s coming to that time) will work better than black tights, which can look hard and dated when teamed with red. Yousefzada likes to clash red with shocking pink accessories, while Kingham recommends navy, grey and tan.
I haven’t bought a red dress yet but I have my eye on a mid-length, long-sleeved design coming up next month in the Uniqlo collaboration with the French minimalist designer Christophe Lemaire. And Osman’s long red tuxedo dress from his resort collection (available from November) has set my heart racing for party season.
Time, I think, to embrace being a scarlet lady.