ake a walk down any
British high street today, and a recurring motif will emerge. As spring begins,
and customers’ thoughts turn to bare ankles, the shops are full
of culottes. For every budget, taste, and occasion, there is a pair. They
might be denim with unfinished edges (Topshop) or tailored and navy and destined
for the office (Marks & Spencer). In designer fashion, there are nautical
versions with button-down fronts (JW Anderson) and voluminous creations in
black leather (Tibi) while Stella McCartney’s are a vision in soft grey boucle.
In many ways, this is a weird trend, given that culottes have
often been a sartorial punchline. Think of Eurovision 1974, and Agnetha
Fältskog’s shiny blue pair, with calf-skimming tulip-shaped hems – an outfit so
comical it has since become part of the fancy-dress vernacular. For anyone who
went to Brownies in the 1990s, culottes were the flappy, conker-coloured shorts
worn while sitting cross-legged on a dusty church hall floor feeling anything
but cool.
But culottes are selling – lots and
lots. At Whistles, between 1 January and 23 March, sales were up by 422%
compared with the same period last year, with culottes outselling skirts. Marks
& Spencer reports strong culotte sales, too, with a leather Autograph pair,
hitting shops later this month, predicted to be one of the big sellers of the
season.
Even those who are
actually selling culottes have had their reservations. “I think culottes are
not very flattering on most people, to be honest,” says Whistles chief
executive Jane Shepherdson. “But ever since we first brought them in, about two
years ago, they keep surprising us.
“They are so popular
that we have been looking at some of the skirts in production and wondering if
we should be joining them as culottes,” she adds. “I suppose it might be
because they are quite an obvious trend – like a midi skirt – and they
represent a change in the long-standing silhouette, from skinny bottoms and
oversized tops, to the opposite.”
“I remember saying a couple of years ago, ‘I bloody hate
culottes,’” says Justin O’Shea, buying director of luxury shopping website
MyTheresa.com. “But I’ve come around to accepting the culotte. They seem to tie
in with the way that fashion is heading, which is that women are dressing for
themselves and each other and not to appeal to men. A woman who would wear
culottes would probably be very fashion forward and not girly – that’s kind of
the point of the design.”
Appropriately, Culottes have a feminist
backstory. After their popularisation in 18th-century France (so closely were
they associated with the ruling class that their opposers were known as “sans-culottes”)
in Victorian England they were trousers in disguise – skirts
that would split apart to enable women to ride horses, play tennis and ride
bicycles.
As ever in fashion, much of the appeal lies in the fact that
culottes feel unexpected and different to the mainstream – and as with any
quirky clothing shape, styling can be tricky. A neat vest or T-shirt, either
tucked in or short enough to show the waist, can be a helpful counterpoint to
all that volume. Block heels, too, will make you feel a little taller, even if
you don’t fancy tottering around in stilettos.
For some younger shoppers keen to buy
into the trend, the answer might be showing some skin: “For summer,” says Asos
womenswear design director Vanessa Spence, “we are offering matching
jacquard bralets and culottes, which offers our customer a young,
fun way to wear the culottes.” But for the power players who wear them while
sitting in the front rows of fashion shows, the aim is to look kooky and
cerebral rather than deliberately sexy. (See early adopter Victoria Beckham, who
wore culottes to underline her high-end designer credentials at New York
fashion week in September 2013.) In fashion circles, culottes are an
alpha statement: either “I don’t care if this looks a bit weird because I like
it” or “my legs are so thin that I can even wear these culottes”, depending on
your levels of cynicism.
No comments:
Post a Comment