Believe It Or Not, The Outfits In Disney+’s Rivals Are The Most On-Trend Thing You Could Wear Now

The houses are big, the hair even bigger and the costumes, believe it or not, are in-keeping with fashion’s proclivity for an ‘80s sensibility this season. Rivals may be evoking all sorts of sartorial nostalgia for those who wore the shoulder pads the first time around but, in fact, the decade is coming for our 2024 wardrobes, too.

On the Coperni autumn/winter 2024 catwalk, for example, there were off-shoulder party dresses with bubble-shaped skirts, a silhouette also seen at Conner Ives and Molly Goddard. There were Balmain’s sculptural cocktail dresses – which certainly wouldn’t look out of place among the Rutshire crowd – and lashings of ‘80s-inflected leopard print at Versace, Zimmermann, Isabel Marant and Alaia.

The tailoring du jour also has its roots in the ‘80s, with structured ensembles for the women to make even Wall Street pale in comparison, including Schiaparelli’s full suits (complete with ‘hair’ ties) accessorised with giant gold earrings. It’s not just for the girls, though; Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello cited Patrick Bateman – the suited-and-booted 1980s anti-hero of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho – as a key reference for his menswear collection.

If the thought of donning your best peplum dresses, court shoes and gold jewellery – lots of gold jewellery – to dance to the Birdie Song is a bit too much for your tastes, it’s worth noting that the country casuals we see in Rivals look as though they could have been plucked from the contemporary runways of Tommy Hilfiger, Burberry, Chloe or Anna Sui, all of whom displayed their penchant for tweed, corduroy, Argyle knits and plenty of plaid.

With shows like Griselda and Joan also plundering the ‘80s archives, it’s curious that this decade’s fashions  – at the time much-maligned – are enjoying a revival at this precise moment. Ray Holman, costume designer for Rivals, suggests that nostalgia and the availability of vintage clothes plays a big part: ‘There is so much fast fashion which is cheap, worn once or twice and then thrown. People are coming around to the idea of buying vintage, wearing something that no-one else has and referencing the past… it’s all about being able to be an individual.’

Holman describes the costumes in Rivals as 'British, bespoke and glamorous,' which certainly seems like the perfect encapsulation of this on-screen wardrobe. To put it together, Holman says he pored over old copies of fashion magazines: 'I have hundreds of collected magazines, including the first hundred copies of The Face and other major magazines from the period like Vogue, Marie Claire and i-D plus interior magazines. We looked at libraries, the internet, the events of the period through politics, sexual politics, music and fashion. My office walls were covered in 80’s imagery and we did mood board references for every character.'

If you think that sounds like a lot of work, that was just the beginning. Holman and his team then set out to find the perfect pieces for each character by checking stock at costume hire companies, as well as scouring vintage shops. 'We searched for original designer pieces and looked at the condition they were in,' he says. 'We checked online, every day, to see what the vintage companies had for sale. We did regular searches of vintage shops and we also made copies of original pieces, especially for the women. We made bespoke suits for the men using vintage and British heritage fabrics.'

You don't need to go full costume, though, to incorporate these clothes into your own wardrobe, as the catwalks proved. There are bubble-hem skirts aplenty at the likes of Mango and Reformation, while party dresses from ROTATE Birger Christensen, Alessandra Rich and Self-Portrait will give you all the glamour of the '80s with a modern silhouette.

But perhaps we should be re-considering certain long-discarded elements of the decade. As Holman says: ‘Power dressing was the thing and maybe we’ve come full circle, maybe people need to feel that tingle of a glamorous outfit and feel the power of a shoulder pad.’

Shop: The Best '80s-Inspired Pieces For Your Wardrobe Now

Hannah Banks-Walker is Grazia's head of fashion commerce. She has previously written for the likes of Harper's Bazaar, The Financial Times, Glamour, Stylist, The Telegraph, Red, i-D and The Pool on everything from fashion to curly hair (hi!) to the patriarchy. Not necessarily in that order. Find her on Instagram and Twitter. But please don't look for her MySpace profile, which until now was the last time she wrote about herself in the third person.