Beige? It’s all the rage!
The key fashion trends for 2019... and how to wear them
50 shades of beige
This year’s colour of choice – beige – may sound dreary, but take heart: it’s easy to pair with most other colours, and can be flattering against the skin (though if you’re very pale, look for beige with a pink undertone to avoid looking washed out). A knee-length, beige wool coat is elegant and often looks more expensive than it is, so it’s an easy way to spruce up workwear or your off-duty jeans and jumper staples. The most modern way to wear the colour is top to toe, as seen on the catwalks at Dior, Burberry, Max Mara and Tibi, and championed by the Duchess of Sussex, who has quickly claimed beige – and biscuit, ecru, ivory, sand, buff and caramel – as her signature colours.
Box ticking
Jodie Comer’s Killing Eve wardrobe, and that pink tulle Molly Goddard dress, gave fashion with a capital F a place on prime-time telly – now, series two promises a stylish follow-up. Keeley Hawes’s turn in new Channel 4 Forties spy thriller Jerusalem will likely leave you wanting a trench coat, if not a change of career. Across the pond, Meryl Streep is joining the already impressive cast (Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Zoe Kravitz) of Big Little Lies for the show’s second series. Expect more glossy Californian mum (and grandmother) style inspiration there. And while you’ll have to wait until the end of the year, series three of The Crown sees Olivia Colman take the monarchal baton from Claire Foy and – more excitingly, from a fashion point of view – Helena Bonham Carter steps into fashion-loving Princess Margaret’s shoes.
Royal baby watch
What will Meghan wear to leave the Lindo Wing? What will royal baby Sussex (RBS for short, not to be confused with the bank) be swaddled in? Does Meghan’s go-to fashion house, Givenchy, offer sizing from 0-6 months? RBS is due in March or April, and it seems I have a lot of questions.
The Cambridge three – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – have set shopping trends ever since a newborn Prince George was first seen wrapped in an Aden + Anais muslin on the steps of the Lindo Wing, causing a 600 per cent increase in sales. Since then, their retro outfits of chunky knit cardigans, dungarees and smock dresses have proved equally popular, and RBS’S wardrobe will no doubt influence childrenswear trends too. Then there’s Meghan’s “mum-style”: can we expect a more relaxed, off-duty era of style for the Duchess? Will she swap the slick newsreader dresses and neutral colour palette for Princess Diana’s mum jeans and polka dot blouses? Cue pregnant pause.
Clean living
If you haven’t heard of Mrs Hinch, then clearly you get out more than I do. Sophie Hinchliffe, a hairdresser from Essex, began sharing cleaning tips alongside pictures of her home (lots of grey and silver, looks a bit
like a Wayfair advert) on Instagram; she now has 1.5 million followers and a debut book, the seemingly non-ironically titled Hinch Yourself
Happy, due out in April. Just the thought of the amount of chemicals she uses brings me out in a rash, but competitive mopping will make a welcome change from all those #ootd (outfit of the day) selfies on my Instagram feed.
Hot ticket
Speaking of Princess Margaret’s shoes – or rather her dresses – don’t miss the V&A’S must-see exhibition of the year, Christian Dior: Designer
of Dreams, opening Feb 2 (tickets on sale now, vam.ac.uk). Adapted from the sell-out show staged at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, it’s the museum’s largest fashion exhibition since the mammoth Mcqueen retrospective in 2015, and charts the output of the fashion house from 1947 to the present day. The dress that Princess Margaret wore to celebrate her 21st birthday will be on show, as will pieces from other clients, including Nancy Mitford, Margot Fonteyn and Jennifer Lawrence, alongside catwalk creations shown everywhere from Blenheim Palace to Paris.
Bow ties
The idea of a bow might smack of the saccharine but, on the catwalks, designers are pushing the motif miles away from any Little Bo Peep associations. At Miu Miu, large black satin bows smartened up blue denim; at Erdem, they added texture to party coats. Emilia Wickstead dabbled with both large – like the black minidress hidden under a XXXL pink bow that trailed down the red carpet when worn by supermodel Alek Wek – and small, tying satin bows at the top and bottom of impossibly perfect ponytails; the latter can be achieved with a trip to the haberdasher’s (vvrouleaux. com has an excellent array of double-sided velvet ribbon in myriad shades).
Supersized weddings
If Lady Gaga’s tour-drobe for A Star is Born (think candyfloss pink feathers, crystal-studded veils and even a starched Elizabethan ruff) is anything to go by, her wedding dress will be quite something.
Elsewhere, we can expect supermodel attendees to match the bride at Emily Ratajkowski’s nuptials, and perhaps a little healthy competitive spirit at singer Joe Jonas’s wedding to Game of Thrones alumna Sophie Turner. Jonas’s younger brother, Nick, married actress Priyanka Chopra last month with not one but two jawdropping ceremonies in India, so the groom’s side of the church, at least, will have high expectations. All of which is more than enough reason to buy a hat.
Which brings me to…
Big hat energy
Following the pomp, ceremony and spectacular hats of last year’s royal weddings, it’s no surprise that the hat is back on the catwalk, and there is plenty of inspiration to be found for this year’s weddings and race days, from jauntily angled saucers at Moschino to veiled-vergingon-beekeeper at Erdem and Simone Rocha. But the beret doesn’t stop there: the everyday hat is making a comeback. Ease yourself in with an alice band: the Duchess of Cambridge has a growing collection of Anne Boleyn-esque toppers, which she wears in lieu of a tiara: think “offduty queen-in-waiting”. You can find versions everywhere from Accessorize to Prada. Come summer, the oversized straw hats shown at Valentino, Chanel and Jacquemus will go with almost everything in your wardrobe, and protect your skin better than any SPF. Cheeringly, the shades to go with them are equally oversized: Balenciaga launches sunglasses for the first time this week (doverstreetmarket.com) and they’re at least three times the size of the tiny, pointy, and singularly unflattering sunglasses that were so popular last year.
Boiling point
Why has it taken fashion designers so long to realise that women like pockets? And not just “show” pockets but ones that you fit an iphone and a tissue and a bank card in?
At Fendi, there were pockets on jackets, handbags, even dangling from utility belts: it seemed that Karl Lagerfeld has been stockpiling pockets for the past few years and is now giving them to us all at once.
Still, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth – buy a boiler suit instead, and revel in the hands-free-dom of the
Zip it up: boiler suits from (above, from left) Hermès, Stella Mccartney and Isabel Marant latest designer iterations, which combine pockets with the one-stepoutfit ease of a jumpsuit. At Jil Sander, these were slouchy, almost pyjama-y – particularly appealing at this time of year – and could be worn with trainers or flat sandals once the weather turns. Hermès’s bright red version was paired with matching shoes and bag for a dressier take.
Summer camp
If 2018 was a good year for Elton John – from his collaboration with Alessandro Michele at Gucci to the John Lewis & Partners’ tear-jerking Christmas advert – then 2019 looks to be ever better. First, there’s
Rocketman, a biopic starring Taron Egerton, produced by the man himself (released in May).
Then there’s the theme of this year’s exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute: Camp: Notes on Fashion. As the exhibition also provides the dress code for the Met Gala (basically the fashion Oscars), and with this year’s hosts including Gucci’s Michele and Lady Gaga (the godmother of John’s two sons), we can expect theatrical fashion homages – and the man himself – on the red carpet.
No-fuss flats
The trainer trend is still going strong, but in 2019 there’s a contender to the goes-with-everything shoe throne: the ballet pump. The Sloane Ranger look is making a comeback. Ballet pumps look good with jeans or skirts of any length, and they’re more flattering on the calf (at least, on my calves) than a pair of trainers. I’d recommend leaving ribbon-straps to the more balletic of figure and look for a good solid sole (try Repetto or Joseph) as thin cardboard ones can be agony on your shins.