4 1GT Wednesday November 18 2020 | the times

fashion

The twist is you wear nothing

underneath it, says Anna Murphy

I’m rather taken with

the triceps-out tank

T

he definition of a knitted

tank top has always been

that it doesn’t have sleeves.

Yet it has also been a

given that the wearer

of said tank top still had sleeves

more generally about their person.

By way of a shirt or blouse worn

underneath. Or even — and this

has become an off-duty favourite

of mine — a long sleeved T-shirt.

Think the love-child of a golfer and,

with their pseudo-uniform of

layered-up tees, a skateboarder.

Tank tops are newly cutting-edge

this season, as worn with all of the

above. However, if one wants to go

the full Sabatier these days, one

sports it with nothing underneath.

I am not saying go without a bra. If

I didn’t wear a bra these days, there

would, alas, be nothing sharp about

my look. But underwear is all you are

allowed. Bare arms are where it’s at.

No doubt this is an inevitable

extrapolation of the newly fangled

realm of knitwear, replete as it is with

such Franken-knit offerings as the

bradigan. A knitted bra and matching

cardi? You must be joking, for similar

reasons to those discussed above.

Thanks for nothing, Katie Holmes,

the bradigan’s own patient zero.

See what a fashion sceptic I am? I

am not won over by any old nonsense.

Which is why you should listen to me

when I say that I am rather taken with

the triceps-out tank. This one

from Me+Em is 90 per cent wool,

10 per cent cashmere, comes with

a detachable poloneck and is also

available in oatmeal (£115,

meandem.com). I have been

wearing mine nonstop, with

sleeves so far, admittedly. But

give it time.

It’s not that I am suggesting the

triceps-out tank as a day-to-day

look. Rather it’s a new approach

to special-occasion dressing. I

don’t know about you, but I am

working on the assumption that

next month will entail some of

that variety of occasion again.

And this looks suitably razzy for

a night out, but also has a 2020-

appropriate low-keyness about it.

It’s my way of having my cake

and eating it, or rather — I hope

— having my early December

cocktail (in the flashiest bar I

can find) and drinking it. It’s also

my way of getting maximum

wear out of what I buy.

Another styling route

would be to underlay a

semi-transparent top, such as

Banana Republic’s puffy short-sleeved

spotty black tulle affair (£39.50,

bananarepublic.co.uk) or Intimissimi’s

sleeker high-neck long-sleeve version

(£39, intimissimi.com). If you want

tricep-related support, then the

unalluringly named yet highly

efficacious Spanx Arm Tights are

a good option. The plain styles are

designed to be worn under long

sleeves — and are a red-carpet secret

weapon of many a star. A couple of

lacier options, available on

the brand’s US website, would

fit our triceps-out tank bill

perfectly. Choose between

the fishnet floral or the

herringbone ($42, spanx.com).

December 2, please God, I am

ready for you.

GucciFest: much-needed oxygen

This year has asked a series of

questions of fashion brands, as it has

done of most of us. One of them,

perhaps the most irrelevant seeming,

has been, what does a fashion show

look like during the Covid era?

It’s a version of a question that was

being asked before. Does a

vastly expensive theatrical

phenomenon that mushroomed

out of what was, in its origin, a

small-scale, practically driven

presentation to customers still

have a purpose? And yet some

kind of événement can bring

much-needed oxygen to a label.

Gucci isn’t the first brand this

year to embrace a film format

to show its new collection.

But it’s the first to eschew

the traditional fashion week

timetable and to launch its own.

GucciFest, a seven-part series

of films that started a nightly

run on Monday, is co-curated

by Gucci’s creative director,

Alessandro Michele, and the

film director Gus Van Sant.

Set in a series of locations

across Rome, it’s a world

that’s recognisable to fans

of both Van Sant and

Michele, so cool it hurts.

The former’s stylised

cinematography is paired

with the latter’s inimitable

brand of cross-dressing, in

which eras, styles and genders seem

interchangeable.

One thing that can be relied on?

The smattering throughout of a fair

few handbags, from which Gucci, like

other big luxury businesses, makes its

money. This red number looks great

slung across the shoulder of a faux-

fur-wearing woman in a café (£1,940,

gucci.com). Oh no, hang on a minute.

It’s a man. Welcome to GucciFest.

Instagram: @annagmurphy

The influencer

Xenia Adonts. Right:

£115 (meandem.com)

Harry Styles and

Gucci’s creative

director,

Alessandro

Michele; 1955

bag, £1,

(gucci.com)

la

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Theinfluencer GucciFes

Just a slice

Flash a little flesh in the right place

to feel sexy again. Not too much,

though, says Charlie Gowans-Eglinton

T

here have been

many fashion

chapters in 2020, but

I’m not sure we’d

call any of them

sexy. Spring was a

write-off — straight

from winter coats to

sitting on the sofa in your pants all

day. (Don’t be misled by the mention

of pants — this was not at all sexy, or

at least not round my gaff.) Summer

wasn’t any racier as trend battles

were fought between leggings and

tracksuits, all-terrain sandals and

heeled flip-flops, gingham dresses

that looked like tablecloths and

trousers that looked like tiled floors.

Don’t get me wrong. I wore, and

liked, most of the above (not the

heeled flip-flops — I’m not deranged).

But sexy isn’t a word I’d use to

describe any of this year’s hot fashion

items, except perhaps autumn’s

leather trousers or the blazer-without-

a-top-underneath chapter (starring

the Finnish prime minister Sanna

Marin and the US congresswoman

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) — neither

of which feels particularly relevant

to our locked-down lives.

If an ankle is flashed in solitary

confinement, can you even be arsed

to shave it? I’d all but forgotten the

existence of my erogenous zones when

Nigella Lawson showed a peek of bare

shoulder in episode one of her new

BBC show, Cook, Eat, Repeat. Trust

Nigella to find the frisson in a plain

black top — and now that she has, I

too would like to master the fashion

knack of looking sexy, but also looking

like that’s not at all what you were

going for. The line is: you just dressed

for comfort while whipping up dinner,

and can’t help it if your thrown-on

ensemble happens to ooze sexiness,

can you? Accidental sexiness is just

a cross that one bears.

In the comment section underneath

my article on Lawson’s new show, a

reader called Fiona suggested that

“a bare shoulder after a certain

age is better than a bare

cleavage or bare bingo wings”.

Certainly shoulders are one of

the bits of us that shows age

the least. Yet I also think that

the amount of skin bared is

crucial. Just a glimpse ensures

that your flesh-flash is less

“look at me”, more

“who, me?” And it

treads the smart/

casual line, meaning it

can easily be

repurposed as

partywear soon

(cross your fingers).

Try Lawson’s

shoulder-peeking in

Mango’s military-

green cable-knit

jumper (was £35.99,

now £25.99,

mango.com) or

Topshop’s rollneck

version (£25.99,

topshop.com). Expose even less to the

elements with a single cold shoulder in

Skin’s lavender cashmere turtleneck

(£235, net-a-porter.com) or Ninety

Percent’s pillar-box red mididress

(£125, net-a-porter.com) with that

single window of skin reminding your

audience (in my case, Charlie through

v p o s p h k m y t B t t G o r b b

topsh )E

Left: dress, £110 (hush-uk.com).

Right: blouse, £44.50 (ghost.co.uk)

Peekaboo cut-outs

Then