Trend watch Mismatching on purpose is a thing
A rule-breaking trend has emerged on runways and red carpets this season, testing that age-old assumption that a pair of accessories must match.
Call it a purposeful mismatch — we’ve seen stars and models purposefully wearing two similar but very different shoes and earrings this season. And it’s just the type of unexpected fashion phenomenon we can get behind.
According to Allure fashion director Nicole Chapoteau, mismatching is “one of those trends that started in the streets and trickled up,” she says, and now it’s been popping up in the red carpets. As for its high-fashion origins, she cites the different-color shoes shown on the runways of early-adapting designers Céline, Calvin Klein and Jacquemus.
Last year, Céline showed pairs of boots and sandals in two drastically different colors, including black and white, red and white and black and brown.
Calvin Klein has taken a slightly different approach, embellishing matching sandals with different details. It’s a subtle difference, but maybe one you caught on Nicole Kidman at the Emmy Awards last month.
Kidman wasn’t the only star who rocked mismatching accessories that night. Feud star Kiernan Shipka and Handmaid’s Tale actress Madeline Brewer chose to wear two distinct earrings on the carpet.
Brewer told USA TODAY she wore two different sparkly earrings because she “liked them both,” and why not?
The always-fashionable Shipka wore earrings that weren’t identical because, as she told USA TODAY on the carpet, she liked that they were similar designs but different colors.
So why the move to wear an odd couple of shoes or earrings?
According to Gabriella Santaniello, an analyst focused on fashion at A-Line Partners, “The point is sort of like, ‘ I’m not going to conform and I’m going to do something that’s the unexpected.’ And I think it’s very much so a reaction of what’s going on in America and the world.”
Want to make that fashion statement? Chapoteau recommends buying one inexpensive pair of shoes in two different colors and swapping the shoes out. As for playing with earrings, that’s easy: Many jewelry brands already pair different-size earrings together, and designers such as Jennifer Fisher sell earrings as singles meant to be mixed and matched.
To many fashionistas, this trend might seem familiar. Like something you did as a kid? That’s how Chapoteau sees it.
“I specifically remember in my day, wearing one light pink Converse and one lavender Converse every day,” she says. “It’s one of those things I see in the art crowd and then my little kids (wear mismatched shoes). That’s just their defiant little quirkiness.”