For years, the fashion industry quietly (well, maybe not that quietly) revelled in its own exclusiveness, in its ability to evoke awe in the humble high-street dwelling civilian not privy to the world of ‘the FROW’. But as bloggers started to barge their way in, fashion week no longer operates on a strict invite-only policy. After all, we’ve all got the internet. And with the advent of street style, everyone’s eyes have arguably been averted away from the clothes on the catwalk onto who’s being papped on the pavement – and no-one needs to be on a guest list to stand on the street.
Because, and stay with me here, street style has become the great fashion leveller. Sure, its beginnings are rooted in photos of impossibly well-groomed women with legs up to their nipples, climbing out of cabs with blacked-out windows, but since the street style aesthetic has become all-pervasive, thanks to magazine spreads as well as Instagram, we’re less impressed by some fashion editor or celebrity who was able to get their hands on a Celine coat before everyone else, and more interested in those women whose style we can truly emulate.
And this season, a new trend has emerged that every single one of us can emulate. Tomorrow. We like to call it Getting Dressed In The Dark.
If there’s one succinct way to describe the overall effect of crumpled shirts, duster coats that could double up as dressing gowns and cosy layering, it would have to be ‘thrown on’. Basically, there’s a the distinct whiff of ‘My alarm didn’t go off’ on the streets of New York right now.
Everyone knows that ‘effortless dressing’ is the biggest lie ever sold to womankind, so it’s hard to say whether these particular fashionistas were truly running late or if they’d actually spent the evening in their hotel room carefully tucking and untucking one side of a shirt. After all, it should be remembered that there’s a real art to getting dressed in the dark.
Speed aside, you need to possess a stealth-like silence (if you’re trying not to wake a slumbering bedfellow), and the ability to distinguish items purely based on the way they feel. Peeling the T-shirt from inside your roll neck and unpicking yesterday}s knickers from your jeans is not easy without a light on. These things are only perfected through practice. I should know.
Either way, we should applaud the fash pack’s apparent rejection of the iron, and of vertiginous heels. Any trend that means you get an extra 10 minutes in bed, and not end the day crippled, has to be a winner. And the great thing about the getting-dressed-in-the-dark look, is that if, somehow, you really do manage to put your shirt on the wrong way round and not realise, then you can chalk it up to being a style statement.
No, you didn’t forget to put your trousers on, it was a conscious sartorial decision. And yes, you’re aware you’re wearing odd shoes, but that’s just the way you roll.
But the best bit? Everyone looks, well, comfortable. Which is an interesting revelation seeing as it’s long been generally accepted that fashion and comfort are not compatible, that in order to have one you have to sacrifice the other.
The only thing to really pay attention to when you’ve left yourself a mere seven-and-a-half minutes to get ready is your underwear. Having to spend the day in the office sans bra and/or knickers just doesn’t feel right. Trust me.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.