My grandmother Mavis loved to offer up an anecdote about how my sister and I got off the bus after school.
‘The big one still looks perfect,’ she’d say of my elder sibling, describing how she’d trot down the stairs from the upper deck in exactly the same state in which she’d headed up them that morning: blazer clean and neatly fastened, cagoule layered on top, school shoes laced and tied perfectly. Then she’d get to me and smile. ‘Karen is different,’ she’d say. ‘She looks like she’s returning from the Somme.’
It was an accurate description. Irrespective of the lengths to which my parents (both unnervingly tidy people) went to ensure I left the house looking presentable, a walking warzone with ripped tights, yoghurt stains and a ponytail so matted it had its own ecosystem was always the way I came home.
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Thirty years on and this scruffy schoolgirl has found herself fortuitously on-trend. A phenomenon we’re calling ‘the haute mess’ is emerging as fashion’s heroine du jour, with a purposefully undone approach to style a viable alternative to roaring Twenties-inspired maximalism.
There’s a sense that trying too hard is the ultimate fashion faux pas right now. Cast your eyes around your train carriage or down the queue while you wait for your morning coffee and you’ll see my people in action. Gaining in confidence and in numbers, the chicest of these scruffbags can be identified by a blend of expensive but understated loungewear, pared-back basics and jeans that have been both loved and lived-in. In contemporary form, the haute mess is a woman who appreciates design but is uneasy with the idea of being decorative. She wears scuffed, retro-looking Nike Air trainers and tracksuit bottoms from a ubiquitous but reassuringly expensive basics brand with an oversized coat. She is comfortable with her slovenliness; she invests in it, assured by the fact that her clothes were not chosen to rack up Instagram likes but to allow her to live her life. Crucially, she is vehement in her belief that too much dressing up is, quite frankly, a bit naff.
And it’s not just on the street that scruffiness is taking over. The idea of unravelling elegance is manifesting across fashion and culture in some significant ways – notably at Balenciaga, which is selling one of its hoodies seemingly pitted with moth holes (yours for a cool £1,300), and Givenchy, whose response to haute mess chic is a logo T-shirt that appears to have been attacked by a cigarette.
Meanwhile, in the rebooted Gossip Girl, which debuted earlier this year, the haute mess found her prime time TV moment – and made style icons out of stars Jordan Alexander and Whitney Peak. In the 2021 version of the show, purposefully ‘thrown together’ looks are used as a signifier of cool, with the uptight headbands and Park Avenue blow- dries that were signatures of the original eradicated by costume director Eric Daman. A wardrobe that comes with grungy streetwear, carefully chosen pre-loved finds and a potent dose of reality stands in its place.
FKA Twigs, who mixes up athleisure with luxury pieces and a big shaggy coat, is arguably the coolest haute mess on the planet right now. She is joined by the immeasurably chic Honor Swinton Byrne and Dua Lipa, who flip between high-gloss glamour and life on the scruffy side with low-slung jeans and shredded sweaters. Model Adwoa Aboah – a flat-shoe enthusiast who is a master at offsetting the most ostentatious of fashion looks with stompy boots and the addition of a vintage denim jacket – is also an ambassador for the cause. They join veterans Alexa Chung, Zoë Kravitz and Katie Holmes in their disregard for fashion that’s ‘try hard’, favouring a look that’s both effortless and indefatigably cool.
Blame lockdown and the death of day dressing; blame the fact that, in the hierarchy of ‘things to take seriously’, full-look fashion has been relegated to a second division of global concerns; or put it down to the increase in female designers making clothes for real women and their real lives, but something nebulous about the white-hot centre of ‘now’ makes scruffy dressing the perfect costume for our times.
A fellow scruffian, Imogen, defines the look as ‘a little further down the scale from effortless’. ‘It says, “I woke up like this”, “I’m relaxed” – rather than “I try too hard”,’ says the former fashion editor, whose uniform is a blend of Old Céline cashmere and tracksuit bottoms from Arket.
It’s not to be confused with Gallic insouciance, which still exudes a certain glamour – albeit of the ‘don’t give a f*ck’ variety – or the great unwashed of the early Noughties, who wore their chipped nail varnish and hangovers like badges of honour. Today’s undone looks are less about big nights out and more about busy schedules. For curator and vintage expert Sonia Solicari, director of London’s Museum of the Home, our collective rejection of orderliness is the most compelling aspect of this phenomenon. ‘There has always been a moral side to how messy you are – neatness is associated with politeness and is a sign of a good moral standing, while there is a certain suspicion around that which is scruffy,’ she says. ‘Lockdown has helped free us from those ideas. We’ve had to rethink everything.’
The new-age scruff wears a vintage cashmere cardigan tossed over an evening dress. Why? Because she doesn’t want to get cold. And she considers her favourite pair of Nikes to be a perfect match for her vegan leather trousers quite simply because it’s the most comfortable way to wear them. The modern-day mess rejects blow-dries in favour of a hairstyle that pretty much takes care of itself.
Certainly, that ‘just stepped out of a salon’ look has never been less coveted. ‘Women don’t want to look like they’ve been to the hairdressers,’ says A-list hairstylist George Northwood. ‘They want to look like they’ve rolled out of bed with great hair.’ Northwood, who is a regular choice of Meghan Markle and is the man behind Alexa Chung’s hugely imitated tresses, recently launched a product line named ‘Undone’ after his clients’ favoured aesthetic. ‘Natural and effortless is definitely the new glamour,’ he says.
On the catwalk, we have seen plenty of evidence to suggest that designers are engaged in this dressed-down mood, too. Sure, after a long 18 months of sweatpants, the recent round of shows brought with them a desire to enter into the carnival spirit – but the overriding message was that it was OK if that came with a handful of shaggy ponytails and perhaps even a crumple or two. More than that, there was the sense that the clothes look better that way.
Dig deep into the minutiae of the fashion that is resonating right now and it’s this notion of contrasts that emerges as a leading theme. Designers from Martine Rose to Celine’s Hedi Slimane are more preoccupied than ever with creating an aesthetic that balances creativity with reality and imperfection with glamour. As a result, clothes that come loaded with authenticity are fashion’s new power-dressing essentials.
Or maybe not entirely new: fashion history is full of examples of people who have adopted a rough-around-the- edges look in order to make a statement. For punks, with their ripped jeans and lived-in leathers, clothing was a way to wear their anarchy on their sleeves. In more recent years, we have seen politicians adopt a shambolic approach (see Boris Johnson’s unkempt hair and Dominic Cummings’ obsession with tracksuits and beanie hats) as a method of assimilating with the ‘common’ man. Today, being a mess is the means through which we can communicate our power as individuals.
The fashion writer and historian Colin McDowell describes scruffiness as ‘an Englishman’s dream’, with ‘living in the same house for 400 years and wearing virtually the same clothes for 400 years’ central to his vision. A woman who is at ease turning up to a party in a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of second-hand stilettos is surely the 2022 equivalent.
I’ve always found a sort of tenacity in clothes that allowed me to blend into the background. While I have adored fashion from an early age, I shied away from the pageantry of it all for myself. As a teenager, I was gripped by copies of Vogue and The Face, which showcased John Galliano’s maximalism and Alexander McQueen’s ability to tell a horror story with a dress. However, when it came to the stuff I’d actually wear, it wasn’t the high-street knock-offs of those collections that inspired me but the aesthetics of my favourite indie bands. This need to look and feel like myself has stayed with me.
Indeed, when I found myself in a job that regularly saw me in a room with some of the most glamorous and put-together people on the planet (I was fashion editor on a newspaper for more than a decade), being scruffy became a coping mechanism. By turning up to a Gucci show in a pair of tracksuit bottoms or interviewing Donatella Versace wearing my painting dungarees (true story), I was freeing myself of the pressure to fit in. I took the same approach on my wedding day, side-stepping the big white dress in favour of a slip dress, which I wore with my favourite hangover jumper remade in cashmere by the designer Richard Nicoll. While one woman’s style armour is an of-the-moment dress by the of-the-moment designer, with a blow-dry to match, mine will always be a wonky ponytail and a big old knit.
For vintage junkie and stylist Amy Bannerman – who views neatness with venom – imperfections are everything. ‘What makes me feel stylish is mainly something vintage or second-hand. I love the fact that it’s unlikely anyone else will have it; it is an individuality that you can’t buy in any designer shop,’ she says. ‘If I was going to a fancy dinner, I would wear a dress or a dressy skirt with a vintage bomber or an old army jacket. I’ve always loved the contrast of the high/low – like a pair of massive f*ck-off spangly earrings with a knackered old grey marl sweat, or a man’s shirt I’d picked up in a charity shop.’
Steph Stevens, a stylist who considers a kaftan bought while on holiday in France to be the most dressed-up thing in her wardrobe, is equally repulsed by the act of dressing up. ‘I hate to look like I’ve made an effort. Done hair and perfectly ironed clothes look so forced on me,’ she says. ‘If I’m wearing something like that kaftan, I’ll wear it with trainers and a pair of socks. Otherwise, I’ll feel daft.’
But while us scruffs-for-life are revelling in our moment, will this just be a passing trend for everyone else? Somehow I think not. Increasingly, this aesthetic defines whole brands, not just individual seasons. Every fashion devotee is (not-so) patiently awaiting the launch of Phoebe Philo’s eponymous new label, which surely will continue the theme she began at Celine, where she emerged as a spiritual leader of women who reject glamour in its most pedestrian sense. In fact, with her undone approach to elegance, she made the act of dressing up seem wholly unsophisticated: I can’t imagine I would have ever had the guts to attend a swanky fashion party in an old pair of scuffed Air Max 90s had I not had the pleasure of watching Philo close a Paris catwalk show in hers.
She is joined in her approach by The Row founders Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen. Their breed of dishevelled elegance and basics so simple they have an Amish quality have earned them a place at the helm of fashion’s most extortionate and understated brands. Certainly, The Row’s £300 white T-shirts and unassuming sweatpants are among fashion’s most ubiquitous status symbols. (Mary-Kate’s recent appearance carrying a Birkin bag that was so beaten up it verged on broken was the ultimate scruff flex, instantly setting her apart from the slightly tacky Hermès fanatics with their pristine, cosseted collections that have taken over social media platforms of late.)
‘We accept imperfections in works of art; it makes sense that we do with fashion, too,’ says Solicari. ‘You wear a coat with a stain on it because that coat is the best and you can’t get it any more. It’s about appreciation of design above all else.’
In this post-pandemic milieu, the permanent rise of the haute mess is far from surprising. As women who inhabit a world plagued with disease, injustice and impending environmental doom, we are attuned to the idea that our worth can be measured in more than perfectly pressed shirts (who on earth has time to iron?) and immaculate grooming.
‘Serious matters push you to take other things less seriously; finding the balance while staying on the edge is a sophisticated aptitude,’ noted Saint Laurent’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello of a winter showcase that saw windswept models stomp across a moor sporting feather- trimmed miniskirts with jackets flung over their shoulders.
Miuccia Prada, who has form for delivering glamour for women who refuse to toe a conventional line, also seems more concerned than ever with clothing that allows women to live their lives. ‘There is always the idea of combining something practical with something beautiful – a dream of practicality,’ she said of the Prada collection she unveiled with Raf Simons last year. ‘Practicality means strength, but that strength can be combined with dreams. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive.’
Her words come as no shock to the seasoned scruffbags among us. We are drawn to clothes that are designed to run for buses and sit comfortably in meetings. They are also confirmation of what we already know: clothes need not be extravagant in order to be beautiful.
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