All Linda Grant wanted was to update her summer wardrobe with a couple of this season's key garments. So why did the high street fail to come up with the goods? Is this the most disastrous clothes season ever?
Wednesday June 13, 2007
The Guardian I have wandered through Top Shop, Zara, Mango, French Connection, H&M, Oasis, Ted Baker, All Saints, LK Bennett, Nine West, Marks & Spencer, Primark, Hobbs and Whistles and I haven't found a single thing to wear. Credit cards smouldered in my wallet, the wide-open wardrobe at home beckoned - and I have returned each time, empty-handed. There is nothing in the shops. Has there ever been a more disastrous season than the summer of 2007, this summer of the minidress and the skinny jeans? I just want to update my wardrobe, as the fashion experts advise. I want a couple of things so that I know that it's this year, not last. I want to be, as they advertise on the Marks & Spencer website, "on-trend". In the winter months, when my new copy of Vogue arrived, when I should have been examining, noting, thinking, "this will work for me, I've got to save up for that," I was turning the pages, over and over, and there was nothing but baggy smocks and mini shift dresses, worn with opaque tights, leggings, skinny jeans or bare legs. I kept looking for the alternative, because there had to be one: a trend so extreme must be tempered by a more wearable look. Surely all I had to do was wait it out to see what the high street would do with the problem. But I have been going to the shops for more than two months now and I can't find anything at all. Zara, my first port of call for reasonably priced, fabulously designed clothes, has become a cemetery full of middle-aged women mournfully loitering among the racks, in search of what is not there - the ghosts of last season's dresses. At Zara there are silky print tunics reaching to mid thigh, very Marni, very Stella McCartney and very, very short. You pick one that looks a bit longer than the rest and hold it against yourself, hoping it might reach to the knees - but it never does. Even Diane von Furstenberg, who single-handedly revived the grown-up dress for daytime wear a few season's ago, has shortened her hemlines. Retailers are reported to have been surprised by the strong demand for a minor catwalk note - the maxidress. In every shop that stocks them there are two maxidresses, conforming to the formula of floral pattern and either spaghetti strap top or that elasticated bodice that is supposed to hold up your breasts with no shoulder support. They are sundresses. You can't wear a dress like this to the office - what would you wear over it? A tailored jacket? A cardigan? Fashion has got you coming or going: if you don't want to wear a short skirt, you're unlikely to want to display your upper arms. "I'm looking for a maxidress with sleeves," a friend said to me, with an expression of panic. But there are no maxidresses with sleeves. They don't exist. Laura Ashley reports an immediate sell-out on its website of a maxidress revived from the 1970s. I went and had a look. It was not a similar dress to one I bought at Laura Ashley in 1971, it was the exact same dress, a halter-neck backless number with a ruffle at the hem. When I wore this dress I was size 10, had visible triceps and nothing to do with them except turn the pages of text books and roll my own cigarettes. Two summers ago, every single woman in Britain seemed to have a tiered gypsy skirt, a sparkly top, a coin belt and wedges or ballet flats on her feet. It was the easiest season in living memory: the style was comfortable, forgiving, and cheap. But the saturation of the high street with boho meant, of course, that the look couldn't last for long. If Sienna Miller had begun the trend for boho, then it was she who would end it. Cropping her hair for her role as Edie Sedgwick in the upcoming biopic of the 1960s heiress and doyenne of Andy Warhol's Factory, she sent us back to the mid-60s. Edie was drug-addicted, doomed, and - the important bit for fashion - anorexic. Fashion was hurtling backwards, from the 1970s hippy era to what had preceded it, that spike of youth and modernity that produced the 15-year-old Twiggy. A teenager myself at the time, I had no idea how monstrous this was for women my mother's age, forced to abandon the structured clothes of the 1950s and start looking like their daughters. In the 60s, even the Queen wore miniskirts, of a kind. By last summer, the gypsy skirt had vanished altogether, as if a giant hand had descended from the sky and rubbed out all traces of it, replaced by city shorts - close-fitting shorts down to the knee. Not everyone wore them; although they could reach some way down the leg, on the pear-shaped British woman they came with an invisible neon sign which, once the shorts were zipped up, illuminated to display the words "Look! Bum!". Still, the high street had plenty of Capri pants, cropped swing jackets, and the ubiquitous wrap dress, that incredibly useful garment, which fell to just below the knee, and had sleeves. So in my memory there hasn't been a summer as bad as this one. In a recent Vogue supplement on the high street, Vogue writers and editors dressed up to illustrate how to work the tunic-mini-smock look of summer 2007. A little dress, tanned legs and you're good to go, one advised. But a few pages on, you reached a photograph of the editor. Alexandra Shulman, aged 49, was dressed in a pencil skirt, coming to below the knee. It was an enormous relief to note that she was not buying the new trend. She agrees that this is what they call in fashion, a "difficult season". So what to wear? "You can't do the very young high streets," she says. "It's not much good going into Primark or Top Shop - they have gone completely over to the very short dresses. Even young girls are wearing them layered, a minidress worn over a skirt and then over leggings. Very few are getting away with the minidress and bare legs." Her suggestion is to move up a few notches in the price range. "I could direct you to Jigsaw. There are longer smock dresses that come to just above the knee. LK Bennett still has its pretty cocktail dresses and Jaeger is quite black and white, for the professional woman." She advises against the maxidress with sleeves: "They do exist but they look awfully Karen Carpenter. But I do think you could put a T-shirt under a maxidress.' This time last year, Marks & Spencer was at the start of a phenomenal season, having introduced quick turnarounds into its Limited Collection range. Its silver linen swing jacket sold out within days. This summer's Limited range is smocks, short tunics and long tops. Autograph offers more structured, knee-length dresses, and Per Una sticks with its on-holiday-in-Sorrento look, the calf-length floral dress with spaghetti straps which prevails year round in fashion limbo. Helen Low, head of design at M&S, recounts being at an industry dinner last week with Kate Bostock, the company's head of women's wear, and a number of fashion journalists, where all the talk was of how hard it was to adapt to the season. "At the start of the season it looked fresh and easy to wear with opaques but as soon as the sun comes out it's a different matter," she says. "You can't wear a jacket with those big sleeves, and not everyone feels confident enough to layer. Kate said she had seen this trend many times before and it has always been difficult to wear. In January there was a fever pitch on the high street: everyone slavishly copying the catwalk, asking, have we got enough tunics? But when we do a difficult trend we have a lot of dissatisfied customers. Take the smocks. You have the awful feeling that someone is going to turn round and ask you if you're expecting again." Low admits that a number of Marks & Spencer's customers have been asking about maxidresses with sleeves, but like Shulman, she recommends layering over a fine-knit T-shirt, or perhaps a cardigan. She agrees it's not an outfit for the office. Her advice is to ignore dresses altogether and stock up on wide-leg trousers, jackets with detail on the sleeves and a crisp white shirt. So the choices this summer are to spend more on classic dresses at more upmarket shops, stick to trousers, or accept Alexandra Shulman's advice and regard summer as a season when one can afford to ignore fashion altogether. "Summer tends to be less trend-based," she says. "My Ghost dresses come out again year after year." Another alternative is to use this summer to develop one's own style, to defy fashion altogether, to wrest power from the hands of the designers and make fashion for yourself. Though only for a while. Because this is fashion, we can be sure that the pendulum will turn, and so it will. "Autumn is full of tailored clothes," Shulman says. "Sleeves are everywhere, a lot of midis are coming our way, worn with big boots." Like Bonnie and Clyde? "Exactly."
Wednesday June 13, 2007
The Guardian I have wandered through Top Shop, Zara, Mango, French Connection, H&M, Oasis, Ted Baker, All Saints, LK Bennett, Nine West, Marks & Spencer, Primark, Hobbs and Whistles and I haven't found a single thing to wear. Credit cards smouldered in my wallet, the wide-open wardrobe at home beckoned - and I have returned each time, empty-handed. There is nothing in the shops. Has there ever been a more disastrous season than the summer of 2007, this summer of the minidress and the skinny jeans? I just want to update my wardrobe, as the fashion experts advise. I want a couple of things so that I know that it's this year, not last. I want to be, as they advertise on the Marks & Spencer website, "on-trend". In the winter months, when my new copy of Vogue arrived, when I should have been examining, noting, thinking, "this will work for me, I've got to save up for that," I was turning the pages, over and over, and there was nothing but baggy smocks and mini shift dresses, worn with opaque tights, leggings, skinny jeans or bare legs. I kept looking for the alternative, because there had to be one: a trend so extreme must be tempered by a more wearable look. Surely all I had to do was wait it out to see what the high street would do with the problem. But I have been going to the shops for more than two months now and I can't find anything at all. Zara, my first port of call for reasonably priced, fabulously designed clothes, has become a cemetery full of middle-aged women mournfully loitering among the racks, in search of what is not there - the ghosts of last season's dresses. At Zara there are silky print tunics reaching to mid thigh, very Marni, very Stella McCartney and very, very short. You pick one that looks a bit longer than the rest and hold it against yourself, hoping it might reach to the knees - but it never does. Even Diane von Furstenberg, who single-handedly revived the grown-up dress for daytime wear a few season's ago, has shortened her hemlines. Retailers are reported to have been surprised by the strong demand for a minor catwalk note - the maxidress. In every shop that stocks them there are two maxidresses, conforming to the formula of floral pattern and either spaghetti strap top or that elasticated bodice that is supposed to hold up your breasts with no shoulder support. They are sundresses. You can't wear a dress like this to the office - what would you wear over it? A tailored jacket? A cardigan? Fashion has got you coming or going: if you don't want to wear a short skirt, you're unlikely to want to display your upper arms. "I'm looking for a maxidress with sleeves," a friend said to me, with an expression of panic. But there are no maxidresses with sleeves. They don't exist. Laura Ashley reports an immediate sell-out on its website of a maxidress revived from the 1970s. I went and had a look. It was not a similar dress to one I bought at Laura Ashley in 1971, it was the exact same dress, a halter-neck backless number with a ruffle at the hem. When I wore this dress I was size 10, had visible triceps and nothing to do with them except turn the pages of text books and roll my own cigarettes. Two summers ago, every single woman in Britain seemed to have a tiered gypsy skirt, a sparkly top, a coin belt and wedges or ballet flats on her feet. It was the easiest season in living memory: the style was comfortable, forgiving, and cheap. But the saturation of the high street with boho meant, of course, that the look couldn't last for long. If Sienna Miller had begun the trend for boho, then it was she who would end it. Cropping her hair for her role as Edie Sedgwick in the upcoming biopic of the 1960s heiress and doyenne of Andy Warhol's Factory, she sent us back to the mid-60s. Edie was drug-addicted, doomed, and - the important bit for fashion - anorexic. Fashion was hurtling backwards, from the 1970s hippy era to what had preceded it, that spike of youth and modernity that produced the 15-year-old Twiggy. A teenager myself at the time, I had no idea how monstrous this was for women my mother's age, forced to abandon the structured clothes of the 1950s and start looking like their daughters. In the 60s, even the Queen wore miniskirts, of a kind. By last summer, the gypsy skirt had vanished altogether, as if a giant hand had descended from the sky and rubbed out all traces of it, replaced by city shorts - close-fitting shorts down to the knee. Not everyone wore them; although they could reach some way down the leg, on the pear-shaped British woman they came with an invisible neon sign which, once the shorts were zipped up, illuminated to display the words "Look! Bum!". Still, the high street had plenty of Capri pants, cropped swing jackets, and the ubiquitous wrap dress, that incredibly useful garment, which fell to just below the knee, and had sleeves. So in my memory there hasn't been a summer as bad as this one. In a recent Vogue supplement on the high street, Vogue writers and editors dressed up to illustrate how to work the tunic-mini-smock look of summer 2007. A little dress, tanned legs and you're good to go, one advised. But a few pages on, you reached a photograph of the editor. Alexandra Shulman, aged 49, was dressed in a pencil skirt, coming to below the knee. It was an enormous relief to note that she was not buying the new trend. She agrees that this is what they call in fashion, a "difficult season". So what to wear? "You can't do the very young high streets," she says. "It's not much good going into Primark or Top Shop - they have gone completely over to the very short dresses. Even young girls are wearing them layered, a minidress worn over a skirt and then over leggings. Very few are getting away with the minidress and bare legs." Her suggestion is to move up a few notches in the price range. "I could direct you to Jigsaw. There are longer smock dresses that come to just above the knee. LK Bennett still has its pretty cocktail dresses and Jaeger is quite black and white, for the professional woman." She advises against the maxidress with sleeves: "They do exist but they look awfully Karen Carpenter. But I do think you could put a T-shirt under a maxidress.' This time last year, Marks & Spencer was at the start of a phenomenal season, having introduced quick turnarounds into its Limited Collection range. Its silver linen swing jacket sold out within days. This summer's Limited range is smocks, short tunics and long tops. Autograph offers more structured, knee-length dresses, and Per Una sticks with its on-holiday-in-Sorrento look, the calf-length floral dress with spaghetti straps which prevails year round in fashion limbo. Helen Low, head of design at M&S, recounts being at an industry dinner last week with Kate Bostock, the company's head of women's wear, and a number of fashion journalists, where all the talk was of how hard it was to adapt to the season. "At the start of the season it looked fresh and easy to wear with opaques but as soon as the sun comes out it's a different matter," she says. "You can't wear a jacket with those big sleeves, and not everyone feels confident enough to layer. Kate said she had seen this trend many times before and it has always been difficult to wear. In January there was a fever pitch on the high street: everyone slavishly copying the catwalk, asking, have we got enough tunics? But when we do a difficult trend we have a lot of dissatisfied customers. Take the smocks. You have the awful feeling that someone is going to turn round and ask you if you're expecting again." Low admits that a number of Marks & Spencer's customers have been asking about maxidresses with sleeves, but like Shulman, she recommends layering over a fine-knit T-shirt, or perhaps a cardigan. She agrees it's not an outfit for the office. Her advice is to ignore dresses altogether and stock up on wide-leg trousers, jackets with detail on the sleeves and a crisp white shirt. So the choices this summer are to spend more on classic dresses at more upmarket shops, stick to trousers, or accept Alexandra Shulman's advice and regard summer as a season when one can afford to ignore fashion altogether. "Summer tends to be less trend-based," she says. "My Ghost dresses come out again year after year." Another alternative is to use this summer to develop one's own style, to defy fashion altogether, to wrest power from the hands of the designers and make fashion for yourself. Though only for a while. Because this is fashion, we can be sure that the pendulum will turn, and so it will. "Autumn is full of tailored clothes," Shulman says. "Sleeves are everywhere, a lot of midis are coming our way, worn with big boots." Like Bonnie and Clyde? "Exactly."
