Fashion

On Monday night, celebrities, designers and the highest edges of New York’s upper crust attended the biggest party of the fashion calendar, the Met Gala. Given its supposed importance, you’d think the looks would always be fantastic; that it would be a night for designers to compete for the best, most creative, most glamorous couture. The reality is a lot more disappointing. There are only ever a few truly standout looks, with most being bland at best — and when designers bother to follow the theme, it’s usually in a painfully uncreative manner. The message of the Met Gala should be that the fashion industry is filled with incredible creative talent. But it usually just tells you that money doesn’t buy taste; nor does being employed by Chanel.

It’s summer and very warm on the famed Café Tomaselli terrace in the heart of Salzburg. Nevertheless, I’m sipping a hot coffee and nibbling strudel (mit Schlagobers — whipped cream, of course!) with Melissa (Missy) Baldino. We are talking food, fashion and Rike & Co., the charming entrepreneur’s new business. Missy launched Rike & Co. this past October from her charming Victorian home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It may seem a bit incongruous in this age of hyperfeminism to be selling aprons and housedresses. But “Rike & Co.,” Missy says, “is all about family and being fashionable while cooking and doing housework and everything else that many of the fairer sex still enjoy doing.

Matthew Williams, the tattooed American fashion designer and creative director at Givenchy, will soon be evicted from the famous house. Givenchy announced on December 1 that Williams would leave his job at the end of the year. Nobody is particularly surprised. His three-year tenure has been controversial and highly disliked by many, and also hasn’t produced any viral products. It was obvious Williams’s publicists knew his time was up too. Late last year, he was profiled by Jessica Testa in the New York Times; an article built around the fact that designer contracts typically only last three years, and that his time at Givenchy wasn't producing hits. Diesel, Vetements, Loewe and Balenciaga have all spun controversy into sales. The best Givenchy achieved was disappointment, if that.

It would have happened on a Thursday, as it does every Thursday. Crowds of young men and teen boys would have lined up outside stores around the globe, in hopes of buying the latest drop from Supreme — the pugnacious streetwear brand which rose from New York skater shop to global multibillion-dollar fashion colossus and sold to fashion conglomerate VF Corporation for $2.1 billion in December 2020. Even if you don’t care about skating or streetwear, you would instantly recognize a white T-shirt slapped with their logo; a red box, with “Supreme” in Futura Heavy Oblique font inside. Celebrities love Supreme, the stylish (Hailey Bieber, A$AP Rocky, Kanye West) and the stylish-wannabes (Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Jaden Smith).

What happens to a fashion brand when the founder leaves? Or, to be more direct, what is Tom Ford without Tom Ford? That was the question hovering over Milan last month as the brand held its first runway show since the famed designer stepped down in April. The man on the marquee wasn't even in attendance; apparently bad weather left him stuck in London (there was a little thunder the day before, so it's plausible, if unconvincing). The House of Ford arrived with an enormous splash in 2006, creating enormous hype through its hyper limited, hyper expensive apparel, which Ford and business partner Domenico de Sole spun into obscenely lucrative accessories and perfume licensing deals.

It was raining on and off, but that was only fitting, as guests waited for the Summer 2024 show of Burberry, a brand that came to prominence in 1879 through its gabardine water-resistant coats. The Highbury Fields show was in a large tent, emblazoned with its signature check, with a green looping runway carpet inside and various celebrities in attendance. As per the fashion usual, the show was running late. At least it wasn’t pouring. Burberry isn’t just the greatest British luxury house; it’s one of the most compelling fashion houses in the world. No brand has such a rich history of contradictory iconography and speaks so directly to the culture of its home nation. Burberry is classy, trashy, flashy, reserved, functional and oh so unnecessary all at once.

Amid the dusk light, there’s hushed, excited chatter. And then drums, lights, and orchestral tones. It’s 10:18 p.m. in Paris, and Pharrell Williams is debuting his first collection as creative director at Louis Vuitton, Spring-Summer 2024. Never mind that it is three quarters of an hour late — fashionably late — nobody cares. This is the biggest fashion event of the year, and we can wait. We’ve been waiting a year and a half already. This is a big deal. Lous Vuitton’s creative director is the biggest role in menswear, formerly held by the beloved, brilliant Virgil Abloh, who passed away from cancer in November 2021.

Ian Fleming once said that a gentleman’s choice of timepiece said as much about him as his Savile Row suit. The latter part of that evaluation seems anachronistic now – after all, who apart from Jacob Rees-Mogg wears Savile Row suits with any regularity these days? But the idea of the watch as indicator of taste, status, wealth and much else besides is, arguably, still valid – and perhaps increasingly so. Luxury watch sales are on the up and predicted to rise further – remarkable given the cost-of-living crisis, their inessential nature and an alarming rise in theft. Watches of Switzerland, who recently opened a multi-brand Canary Wharf showroom, saw revenue jump 17 per cent in the last quarter.

Almost 50 years ago, I was fashion editor of the Sunday Times and a man in his mid-twenties by the name of Michael Roberts was a junior editor. Born in Buckinghamshire in 1947 to an English mother and a father from St Lucia, he was handsome and stood very tall and straight. Even so, when he was named the world’s most elegantly dressed man under 30 at the International Male Elegance Awards, I was baffled. His habitual garment was a second-hand tweed coat done up with a piece of string… how could this be? But it wasn’t long before his creative genius became obvious – to me and to the rest of the world.