the times | Wednesday October 14 2020 1GT 7

fashion

Ditch the mididress — it’s all

about the sweater and midiskirt

After a decade

spent in dresses,

our new low-key

social lives demand

a different look

says Anna Murphy

W

hat clothes,

if any, have

you bought

since

March? I’ll

wager that

for most of

you a dress

won’t be among them. I love a frock,

but I haven’t felt the need to buy

another one. No surprise that when

I talk to brands at every price point

they tell me that dress sales have

plummeted; it’s all about separates

now. What we are bearing witness to

is — among other admittedly more

significant phenomena — the death

of the dress.

Because the past ten years could

accurately be called the decade

of the dress. Hard to believe that

when I interviewed the American

celebrity stylist Elizabeth

Saltzman in 2009 she told me

how baffled she was, when she

moved here, by British women’s

coyness about what she

considered a one-stop sartorial

solution. “Rather than just

wearing a day dress, it was

a skirt, a shirt, a jumper. I

thought how complicated

it was. It scared me.”

Yet we got with the

programme, and then

some. On the catwalk a

brand such as Vetements

led the way, with long-

sleeved floral midis that

looked like something our

grandmothers might have

worn. Turned out we

wanted to wear them too,

as evidenced by how

there were soon copies

all over our high street.

What was going on?

“Young people wanted to

look old, and old people

wanted to look young,”

is how the celebrated

trends forecaster Li

Edelkoort put it to me

once. “I think young

people really like their

grandparents. There

is a great bonding

between those

two generations.”

And dressing in

a feminine way was

no longer judged

disempowering,

especially not

when you

factored in

fashion brand you could mention.

“People still bought our blouses,

which are bright and uplifting.” Yet

Kim knew that to survive she had to

look at how to expand the Kitri

signature — colour, simple pattern,

joie de vivre — across more separates.

Now, with what remains of our

social lives shaping up to be chillier

than in previous winters, we are

looking for a newly cosy take on

2020 femininity. And thanks to

Zoom we are now focused on top

halves and bottoms rather than

one pieces, and (thanks to financial

pressures) on maximum sartorial

flexibility, it’s all about a woolly plus

skirt. Think Penelope Keith in

To the Manor Born. Only don’t.

Because the new retool is cool

rather than county.

This week Kitri launches a new

knitwear range that does what it

says on the tin. To wit, the black cardi

and cami embroidered with pink roses

(£85 and £45, kitristudio.com). This

would dovetail just perfecly with its

chinoiseire-ish multi floral on black

long pencil, which has three pretty

pink velvet bows above its single slit

(£85, waitlist from 22 October),

Hats off to another London-based

label that has cunningly recalibrated

its aesthetic DNA. I am talking about

Self-Portrait, which — behold the

ultimate challenge — is known not

just for frocks, but for lacy ones. Its

lace-trimmed knits are some of the

most spectacular I have seen this

season. The ivory puff-sleeved

number with black Chantilly insert

at the neck plus black faux leather

shirred midi (£240 and £270, self-

portrait-studio.com) would pass

muster at a cocktail party, or —

if needs must, which it looks as

if they may well do — make

a kitchen supper feel like one.

Another small British dress

brand, another impressive pivot:

I give you Ridley London. Just one of

the things I love about Ridley is its

consumer-friendliness. And I mean

that literally. All the clothes are

made by British seamstresses, and

Camilla Ridley says she welcomes

a pre-purchase call to, as she puts

it, “find your Ridley fit”. Over

the summer she offered pretty

long-line skirts in floral cottons

and silks — both of which,

I can report from experience,

continue to work well now over

opaque tights and tall boots —

as well as more obviously winter-

appropriate velvets and needlecords

(from £199, ridleylondon.com).

Ridley’s latest additions are a range

of gorgeous hand-knits, all made to

order — delivery time is typically five

to ten days — by the brilliantly named

London-based operation Virginia

Wool. Again, it’s all in the detail, be it

the khaki cable poloneck with navy

cuffs and striped back (£369) or the

crewneck in cream and grape (£349).

There’s something so special about

these palpably handcrafted pieces.

Further proof that you don’t have to

dress to impress.

the stompy boots that were also

part of this new uniform. Soon there

were dresses that made us look more

like our great-grandmothers, faux

historical flights of fancy from cult

labels such as The Vampire’s Wife

(think, as the name suggests, Vampira)

and Love Shack Fancy (think Tess of

the d’Urbervilles). Countless more

accessibly priced small British brands

built their fortunes on the frock.

Kitri was one. “When we began

in 2017 it was the dresses that our

customers really responded to,” says

its founder, Haeni Kim. “There was a

boom in femininity.” So much so that

Kim talks of the brand’s “viral dresses”,

the ones that went bonkers after

appearing on social media; 80 per cent

of Kitri’s sales were you-know-whats.

Lockdown started, Kim continues, at

“the beginning of what was supposed

to be our occasionwear season”. Cue

what she describes as “a rollercoaster

ride” for Kitri, along with every

Young

people

wante d to

look old,

and old

people

wante d

to look

young

Sweater, £95,

skirt, £

sezane.com

Sweater, £210,

skirt, £

tarajarmon.com

Sweater, £35.99,

skirt, £49.

mango.com

Sweater, £215,

skirt, £

essentiel-antwerp.com