The new glam-casual: how to dress down your dressy pieces

Eighties. Vaccarello has said: “I always relate YSL to parties, to evening.” For this autumn that means tiny curvy dresses in shining leather or velvet and ker-pow rhinestone knee-high boots.

Also bringing sexy back are new evening brands like Galvan, Attico and Michael Halpern, labels making clothes for going out out. Gucci meanwhile has gone a different route, mixing colour, luxury textures and embroidery techniques to create an eccentric glamour in the style of Iris Apfel – to great commercial success.

The secret of that success lies not in the head-to-toe, maximalist styling of Gucci catwalk shows, which in real life would make your children run screaming, but in the way the label provides statement separates and accessories that will add pop and interest to jeans or a pleated skirt. It’s glamour but tempered by all those styling lessons we’ve been learning since 2007. Call it Glam-casual, a new dressing up underpinned by something street-style, something sporty, something understated. That may take the form of a zip-up sweater with long floaty chiffon. Or a hip-hop-worthy giant duvet coat worn with a tweed skirt.

At Dries Van Noten, models of all ages wore bright geometric printed velvet coats with turned-up straight-legged jeans and flat lace-ups. Chloe performed an unheard of feat, managing to turn the shell-suit into a silky desirable luxury item.

It’s glamour, but not as we knew it.

Online telegraph.co.uk/fashion Twitter aytime dressing has dominated this decade. Think about it. For so long now the major trends have been about dialling things down. Minimalism, normcore, not changing out of your gym kit, not changing out of your luxury pyjamas. We’ve worn ballet slippers, brogues, fur-lined slippers and Dad sandals. There have been trainers at Chanel haute couture and £800 tracksuits at Vetements. (I didn’t say the price was dialled-down).In a cultural context it’s not hard to see why dressing more casually might have held some appeal. The last 10 years have seen us living and working differently. Since the crash of 2007 we’ve moved through recession and redundancies. Technology has increased remote working. And since 2008 the number of selfemployed people in the UK has risen by 1.2 million. With less of a frontier between work and home, you can see why athleisure and lounge wear, comfortable jersey and cosy cashmere, have been an attractive way to clothe yourself for modern life.The lack of formality extends to leisure time.We go out more but dress up for it less. Ten years ago a body-con dress and a pair of YSL Tribute platform shoes was the glamour ideal. How alien that seems now, how uncomfortable. I’m not saying it’s disappeared– for some women it’s an aesthetic that feels good – but fashion designers have generally been more interested in creating an aesthetic that has been understated, oversized, covered up and casual.In recent seasons though, glamour has sneaked back into fashion, played out in various guises. Since Anthony Vaccarello arrived at Saint Laurent last year his collections have boasted a mega-wattage sex appeal not seen since the @K_finnigan Instagram @katefinniganladyCasual glam: from left, Dior mixes knitwear with chiffon; velvet over denim by Dries van Noten; and Chloe updates the shell-suit like never before. Erdem, below, pairs a brocade coat with matching boots