There aren’t many designers in the last few years who’ve made it into the canon of ‘household names’. You know, the designers that even your mates who couldn’t care less about fashion have heard about. But Isabel Marant is one of the newest entries.
You’d have to be have been sprawled under your sofa for at least the last five years for the Marant phenomenom to have passed you by. Easy, breezy, casually sexy French dressing, with a side order of tousled hair, now accounts for at least 7/10ths of streetstyle these days. A jacket from her H&M collaboration even sold on eBay for almost £1,000 earlier this year. And that's all down to Ms Marant – and her simple mantras, as evinced her in latest AW14 collection: ‘I like being comfortable [in winter]; warm clothes that you can feel secure in.’
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The show kicked off with monochrome separates suitable for the polar vortex: think slouchy ivory leather peg-leg trousers worn with tees and oversized belted fur and shearling gilets. There were Aztec-meets-Quicksilver white and black printed sweaters (yeah, that's totally a new hybrid) and big furry laced-up yeti boots – very Elle Macpherson in Aspen; perhaps harder to pull off in urban areas.
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Next up were loads of army green leather trousers and belted jackets. (FYI, now that it’s been seen at Balmain and H&M, it’s clear khaki is emerging as one of the hot colours for next winter.) The repetoire may have featured some quintessential Marant pieces – the loose leather trousers and the sparkly mini skirt, worn with casual knits – but new to the mix were high-waisted belted loose trousers and sharply-shouldered, sometimes exaggeratedly puff-shouldered, jackets.
**She’s also forced us all to re-consider the cardigan: suddenly rendered in grey and khaki, it looked kinda cool when paired with a T-shirt and fringed mini neckerchief. The stand-out piece came near the end: an incredible silver mock-croc waterfall jacket. And those lace-up leather ankle boots? Sure to appear in Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Miranda Kerr's airport get-ups before the summer is even over.
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So what staples should you take away from the most wearable of Paris's ready-to-wear collections? Here's your five-point shopping list.
1. A khaki T-shirt
Layer it under everything for that utilitarian vibe.
2. A black leather mini skirt (or some black leather trousers)
A perennial staple – not just in Isabel's collections, but in your wardrobe, too.
3. A grey cardigan
Wear it open, with a neckerchief and add some leather to rock up the librarian feel a bit.
4. A sharp-shouldered slate, khaki or black jacket
To wear tightly belted over…
5. Loose, belted cotton trousers
Remember those fisherman trousers from your gap year? Yup, they’ve kinda come back. Just keep some sharpness up top to achieve the casual/sexy Marant balance.
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Pictures: Jason Lloyd-Evans
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.