Our fashion winners and losers of 2018
Monday’s lavishly produced Fashion Awards may have had the Royal Albert Hall, the Duchess of Sussex and a host of A-listers in sparkly attendance, but the Saturday Style Page prizes don’t need frills. What they lack in venue and starwattage, they more than compensate for (IMHO) by being incredibly cheap to make (in view of the fact we haven’t yet got around to actually making them) exceptionally personal and entirely subjective.
1 Most Beautiful Beauty Moments The beauty industry got off to an unpromising start in 2018, bombarding journalists with gross-out amounts of plastic, balloons and all manner of other planet and soul destroying flotsam.
As the months wore on, however, more (mainly niche) brands seemed to be getting with the programme. From cruelty-free, organic, vegan lipsticks with lasting power (Axiology, £25, naturissimo.co.uk) to biodegradable packaging (from January 2019, British body range Bramley will have fully recyclable pumps and online customers will be able to choose between biopolymer or glass bottles, from £4 bramleyproducts.co.uk) things are changing. Best beauty launches: Garden of Wisdom’s brilliantly effective, affordable skin care range (from £9 victoriahealth.com), and Katie Brindle’s miraculous jade face, body and hair tools designed for use with gua sha, an ancient Chinese technique to improve circulation and skin tone that deploys pressing, patting and stroking. (For a fuller account go online for a feature I wrote back in January) or check out Katie’s videos on her website – she’s her own best advertisement. Use the restorers for a couple of minutes every day and stand by for truly startling results (£38, hayoumethod.com).
2 Most compelling (and weepiest) fashion films: Mcqueen, Bombshell and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel Absorbing, intimate and visceral, Mcqueen is so rich in source material (including a surprising amount of footage shot by Lee Mcqueen and his team throughout his career) you feel you not only know him, but understand something of the artist’s perspective.
Bombshell, another docu-feature in this blossoming genre, isn’t strictly about fashion, but as the story of Hedy Lamarr, one of the world’s most beautiful and intelligent actresses (she invented the forerunner of GPS and Bluetooth), it’s a poignant reminder of what happens when surface gets in the way of substance. She was woefully underestimated.
And The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, back for a second series on Amazon Prime is ostensibly a comedy, but the casual sexism of the Fifties will raise your hackles even if they don’t rouse your tear ducts. And the clothes are fabulous.
3 Greatest source of optimism Vegan handbags acquired some panache (mashu.co.uk), while renouncing fur (Gucci, Versace, Mcqueen, Armani, Tom Ford, Burberry and, any minute now, Prada) became all the rage.
Websites exclusively selling sustainable fashion such as Antibad (antibadstore.com) and
Rěve En Vert (reve-envert.com) launched or blossomed. Labels flexed their consciences – Ninety Percent (ethically produced) announced it would donate 90 per cent of its profits to charity (ninetypercent. com). The Duchess of Sussex revealed that she’d read an article declaring “it’s cool to be kind” and the industry inched its way into diversity.
Yes there’s still some diva behaviour on the front rows, and fashion bullying continues, in mutated forms, but an industry that embraces the impressively articulate Sinéad Burke can’t be completely vacuous. Can it?
4 Most consistently good (and cheap) shoes: M&S
I know. M&S shoes used to be a no-go area. But from summer’s black and white woven Celine “tributes” to this winter’s patent ankle boots, they’re keeping our feet and bank accounts very happy.
5 Most Fashiony of Fashion Moments Democracy, accessibility and affordability are all fine aspirations, but every so often you just want to see something that is so incredibly beautiful, so exquisitely, lovingly crafted, so fashionhistory-in-themaking that it takes your breath away.
By definition, that almost no one in the world will ever be able to afford it doesn’t matter because
– shocking as this may seem to the average consumerist mindset – you don’t always need to own something to enjoy it.
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture shows for Valentino were two standout exemplar of the it-doesn’t-matter, bring-it-on school of fashion, as was the Dior exhibition in Paris; 70 years of outstanding design imaginatively and exhilaratingly displayed – and on its way to the V&A in 2018.
Clare Waight Keller’s wedding dress for the Duchess of Sussex and her second couture show for Givenchy in the summer were also spine-tingling moments.
6 Most visited high-street store (by me): Arket Minimalist, Scandi and well-made, with a website that seems expressly designed to make life tricky – thereby deterring the hordes – this is the one retail space that makes me feel (entirely erroneously) that I might actually be living by sacred tenets of less-is-more.
7 Team Telegraph’s newest go-to label: Baum und Pferdgarten
I know you’d like to picture us sitting around filing our nails with our Manolo’d feet up on the desk while someone brings us turmeric lattes and facial compresses all day long, but the reality is ever so slightly different. Ergo, while our clothes have to look expensive, we quite like it when they don’t make us bankrupt (turmeric lattes don’t grow on trees). The evolution of the high street’s higher end labels (we call this growing segment The High High) has been closely watched by us this year. And while Ganni (Danish) and Masscob (Spanish) are two of the most popular in our office, Baum und Pferdgarten (also Danish but colourful and feminine with just enough edgy attitude to make it modern but not ridiculous) raced to the front in the past few months, despite the energy required to actually pronounce it correctly.
8 My very favourite trends of the year: Pleats, Prince of Wales Checks and polka dots All big hits this year, but also classics. This may be an oxymoronic state of affairs, but anything that mitigates against throwaway culture seems like progress. I’ve drafted in both Kate and Meghan to model the spots and pleats – never let it be said this column takes sides in (rumoured) royal feuds. And to ensure no one’s regal feelings are wounded, I’ve included the Prince of Wales. To be fair, not many people are actually named after a fashion trend.
9 And my least favourite trends: (there are a few of them) Animal print, fringing, handkerchief hems, ripped jeans … all stinkers, but not as egregious as yellow, the colour that suits almost no one, witness Amal Clooney’s turn as a banana. Also see those naughty gilet jaunes looting Fendi, smashing windows at Mcqueen (both on the Rue Sainthonoré), setting fire to Chanel on the Rue Cambon and generally wrecking Paris’s retail economy. Enough with the jaundice.
10 Best Hairapy: Virtue and Sister & Co
Virtue’s miraculous shampoo, conditioners and styling products, with a patented form of human-derived keratin (from £14 virtuelabs.com) are transforming hair, while junk Sister & Co’s Raw Coconut Drink leaves follicles softened and nourished (£27, sisterandcoskinfood.co.uk).
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