After a month of catwalk shows, fashion watchers have forensically analysed the clothing sported by every supermodel and front-row celebrity in the hopes of absorbing their style secrets.
But there’s one, very important, group whose personal style is often unjustly neglected: the designers themselves.
From the colourful Miuccia Prada, the 74-year-old matriarch of modern Italian fashion, to the ultra-polished Victoria Beckham, 49, who even managed to make a pair of crutches look chic on the catwalk of Paris Fashion Week, these designers — women mainly in their 50s and upwards — are the brains behind the runway looks that influence the High Street and have spent decades carefully honing their wardrobes to showcase their personal style, while flattering an older figure.
Here, we share how you can steal their high fashion secrets on a High Street budget…
Classic with a kooky twist: Miuccia Prada
‘I think many people have different characters in themselves: the feminine part and the masculine part, the gentle and the tough’, Miuccia has said. And this is the key to emulating her style: juxtaposition. Try pairing feminine dresses with penny loafers and men’s shirts with bejewelled earrings.
Appearing on the cover of Vogue last month, Prada wore a pillar box red silk coat over a citrine sweater, both from her first Prada collection, completing the look with thick-as-bicycle-chains gold necklaces. In another shot, she added a touch of androgyny to her suit skirt by pairing it with stompy monk shoes. Chinti & Parker has a sweater reduced to £76 (harrods.com) that’s just as zingy as Miuccia’s archival Prada one, while Baukjen has a recycled wool version of her red silk coat more appropriate for British climes (£179, baukjen.com).
Tasteful maximalism: Diane von Fürstenberg
DVF’s devotion to print is a refreshing antidote to the beige palette of ‘stealth wealth’. To emulate her style, look for intricate florals and geometric prints, and don’t be afraid of the odd splash of leopard.
Zara has a floral shirt that looks like Cezanne himself might have painted its flowers (£32.99, zara.com). Tuck into Boden’s tomato-red pencil skirt (£77, boden.co.uk) for an unapologetically feminine DVF-inspired look. And don’t neglect her most iconic creation: the wrap dress, which she invented in 1974 and still wears on repeat at the age of 77. Hobbs has a geometric version that’s all kinds of Fürstenberg (£99, hobbs.com).
Polished poise: Victoria Beckham
VB showed just how committed she is to her ultra-polished personal style when she stepped out in Paris earlier this month on crutches; on one foot she had a medical cast and on the other a pair of £860 Alaia heels.
Tailored flares from her own brand are usually the 49-year-old’s shortcut to chic — floor-sweeping and immaculately cut, they exude ’70s glamour. But with a price tag of upwards of £500, your next best bet comes courtesy of Boden. Their Westbourne flares (£80, boden.co.uk) come in an array of colours in a flattering ponte fabric. VB usually pairs her flares with a roll neck in a clashing hue — think red with Cadbury purple and lime with lilac. Oh, and sunglasses of a size that positively screams ‘my dad had a Rolls Royce’. Naturally.
Cool casual: Stella McCartney
Talk about putting the cool into Cool Britannia. Stella’s aesthetic is approachable and wearable but somehow simultaneously the epitome of aspirational and chic.
Her essentials? Tailoring, tailoring and more tailoring. See the grey suit she wore for her Paris show last week or the power-shouldered, London bus-red blazer she wore to an art fair last October.
And the golden rule of this tailoring? Four words: Size. Up. In. Everything. Reserved has a scarlet jacket (£69.99) and trousers (£39.99, reserved.com) that, in several sizes bigger than your usual (don’t hold back here), will give the perfect McCartney menswear-inspired silhouette.
By day, Stella, 52, makes her suits errand-running appropriate by pairing them with white trainers; by evening, stilettos reign supreme.
