Fashion Brief
This season’s look
You’re going to need a trousersuit. Think campus, not boardroom: Vogue champions the “seventies geography prof” corduroy trousersuit while Harpers is feeling the Maxmara velvet double-breasted number. “Ditch your scruffs and start dressing like the boss you’ve always wanted to be,” says Glamour. Confusingly, you’re also going to need sequins. In Love, editor Katie Grand talks up the “not been to bed yet” chic of a sparkly gown for day. Harpers, helpfully, suggests how to blend the two, teaming Saint Laurent’s £6,855 rhinestone boots with a trousersuit. Everyone agrees that warm-hued neutrals replace the cool tones of grey, navy and white: think mustard, tan, chestnut, burgundy and oxblood. The jury is out on how much flesh to show, though. Vogue celebrates the demure “full body stretch” silhouette (high-neck sweater, long skirt whose hem covers the top of your boots), but in Love, Karen Elson is naked and Alexa Chung topless. Key details on which we have consensus are: daytime shoes should have a low heel and a high front (the opposite of toe cleavage, as it were – a high neckline for your foot), while for evening it’s all about a skintight over-the-knee boot. This is essentially a silk stocking with a stiletto heel attached. Oh, and you’ll need a cardie. “Crop it, embroider it and puff the sleeves: the cardigan is back,” says Vogue.
What you would buy if you could afford it?
In Vogue, the shoot styled by Kate Moss – the one with the bare bottom in it, naturally – opens with a beaded silk Chanel dress for a cool £23,330. The Miu Miu transparent PVC trench (£1,240) is everywhere, as is the Chloé red velvet dress with heart-shaped cut-out at the neckline (£1,670), but both of those will spark a thousand high-street imitations before September is out, so why not save your pennies for the Gucci AC/DC jumpsuit with tailcoat, as seen in Red (£3,650).
What you might actually buy
We’ll have to wait till next month for the bargains – the October issues are traditionally the high-street showcases – but Vogue has several high-street versions of this season’s must-have Prince of Wales check blazer, of which the standout appears to be the Marks Spencer Autograph £79 version. An HM dark-floral chiffon blouse, £20, and the Sherpa jacket by Levi’s, £110, are also worth racing for. Red draws attention to Zara’s excellent selection of fancy new-season sock boots.
The vibe to steal for your Instagram photos
There’s a subversive-slash-nostalgic Americana thing going on in editorial right now. Vogue’s shoot styled by Kate Phelan and shot by Alasdair McLellan is all about a mug of black coffee, a slice of pie in a diner, and a rusty railway sleeper. In Love, the unsmiling straight-backed young couple posing in front of a wooden-slatted house are straight out of Grant Wood’s American Gothic. In Glamour, an outhouse workbench with a beaten-up wheelbarrow is the backdrop for cowboy boots and a bandana. It’s a bit Sissy Spacek, a bit Lana Del Rey, very Raf Simons for Calvin Klein. Channel by accessorising your new-season look with a burger and milkshake and making mocking reference to Making America Great Again in the caption.
Styling hack to steal
The white poloneck under a denim shirt or jacket, as seen on the Calvin Klein catwalk, makes three appearances in Vogue’s aforementioned Americana shoot, each time worn with the kind of sentimental gold necklace your aunt would give you for your sweet 16th birthday.
Essential cocktail party chat
Rich pickings in Harpers’ “at-home” with Samantha Cameron, which reveals that the person she most admires is Vivienne Westwood, for her “passion for campaigning”, and that David Cameron drinks tea from a mug emblazoned “Leader of the Opposition”, has an Alison Jackson print of a lookalike Tony Blair placing a bet on the election by his desk, and makes jokes about his “internationally acclaimed shed”. Also: the end of actually speaking to people and the illicit Joy of Text. “It’s OK to wait for your phone to stop ringing so you can text and ask what they wanted,” says Glamour. Discuss.
Places to be seen
Vogue tips the upcoming Basquiat show at the Barbican. For holidays, Harpers waxes lyrical about Colombia’s “cloud forests and technicolour one-horse towns”. Red roadtests new Manhattan phenomenon, the “Cave Day” productivity retreat. Millennials pay to surrender their phones and spend a day in white-noise, in order to learn to get stuff done rather than faff about on the internet. “Meredith Gray, founder of a quinoa snack company, is hoping to complete some financial spreadsheets.”
Celebrities to try to make friends with
Nicole Kidman: that Love cover in the red swimsuit has set the Kidmannaissance to red-hot.
What to eat
No avocado on toast to be seen. Harpers has reports from summer’s canape front line, with tales of smoked salmon on rye at the Serpentine and “a two metre long prawn-shaped ice sculpture dripping in crab claws” at the Royal Academy. “The answer to still or sparkling is now, ‘tap’,” says Glamour.
Should you cut your hair off?
Probably. Kristen Stewart’s blond crop on Harpers is epic, while Stella Tennant flies the flag for short hair on the front of Vogue. Inside Vogue, everyone from Adwoa Aboah to Cressida Dick is showing off short locks.
Vocab to drop
The prefix “super” is replaced by the suffix “AF” (as in “as fuck”). Feisty! So, instead of being “super excited” about cocktails, you must now be “excited AF”. Update your WhatsApp chats accordingly. Runner-up new colour of the season comes from Vogue, where the dusty-lavender-pink of Valentino’s long dress (look 12, fact fans) is dubbed “amaranth”. But in pole position, we have “cactus”, the shade of limited-edition luggage by Rashida Jones for Away, as seen in Glamour.
