Are you a clean girl or an Insta baddie? A scandi girl or a goth dressed from head to toe Rick Owens? Tempting as it might be to try and fit ourselves into neat little boxes and Instagram factions, we must accept the complexities of life, and the multitudes we contain. Nowhere do I feel this more keenly than when sifting through the street-style photos from fashion month, the two wolves inside me snarling over scraps of Pepto-Bismol pink and goth-girl all black “rags”.
On the one hand, I want to be a sort of Hermès-wielding, Old Céline-wearing woman in the manner of Lily van der Woodsen: all crisp shirts and camel coats – perhaps something slinky by Tom Ford when the occasion calls for something skimpier than a trench coat. On the other hand, there’s a Miss Havisham-meets-Violet Beauregarde spirit inside me that yearns for Prada school skirts and Ashley Williams-esque twisted girlhood – all Julie Kegels, puffed sleeves and chipped nail varnish.
This season, I spied this sort of push-pull embodied in a single garment that kept cropping up on the runways. At August Barron, where Petra Collins walked with a Stepford Wives-gone-wrong glint in her eye, one detail cut through: the bolero-style polo shirts, worn slung over shoulders and awkwardly bunched at the arms, shades of Barbie pink peeking from beneath well-worn school-uniform knits. It felt like a back-to-school fever dream, and a spookier, more seasonally appropriate take on my late-summer Marissa Cooper obsession that saw me adopting oversized Lacoste polos and denim miniskirts.
August Barron wasn’t alone in giving the preppy staple a new spin – Miu Miu, ever the gold standard for subversive uniform dressing, sent tangerine polos down the runway paired with clashing silk cravats, and double collars that popped under floral aprons. Kiko Kostadinov’s sculptural versions came in ice-cream shades, collars jutting out as though heavily starched.
It’s been a big year for preppy style. For his Celine debut, Michael Rider transported us back to the land of the bourgeois with collegiate colours and silk scarves – a more elevated take on the angsty August Barron approach to the polo shirt. Respect also must be paid to Lucila Safdie, whose shrunken polo shirts have become a staple in her world just like headbands and knee socks. No longer reserved for the academically rigorous, the polo is having its moment in the sartorial sun, this new Gen-Z sensibility giving it a deeply unserious slant. Something we could all use a little more of this autumn.
