Admittedly, I’m not the typical voice you’d expect to hear discussing fashion. Those familiar with me might even find the notion amusing.
In my household, my wife reigns supreme in the realm of style. Having spent over 25 years as a fashion industry maven, she’s worked with brands like Miss Selfridge and M&S, and frequently jetted between Paris, Milan, and New York.
Her confidence in her fashion sense is matched only by her skepticism of mine. It’s not unusual for her to send me back to change my attire before we step out together.
Despite this, I’ve developed my own strong opinions on the common pitfalls in women’s fashion, though I’ve kept them largely to myself—until now.
In the 1990s, The Fast Show’s sketch featuring Arabella Weir asking, “Does my bum look big in this?” perfectly captured women’s insecurities about their looks, turning it into a cultural catchphrase. However, these sketches never quite addressed the fact that the person fielding such questions is often the woman’s male partner.
This question presents a tricky situation: Should one maintain harmony by confidently assuring no, or risk honesty by admitting that, well, perhaps the outfit isn’t the most flattering?
Most men in this situation will, I believe, through a judicious mix of good manners and self-interest, opt consistently for the former answer: no it doesn’t, honestly.
And that discretion has informed my conduct more widely: if I see a woman wearing a horror outfit – the one ruining the group photo at the wedding or a colleague coming to the office in something comically bad – the last thing I would do is give any indication that I thought this.
No, I have kept my counsel.
In fact, I have doggedly avoided commenting on women at all.
Most of my male peers are the same: we are predominantly polite and keep our thoughts to ourselves.
But, increasingly, women do not do this. Over the course of my lifetime, the culture has shifted so much that it is now women who routinely objectify men. If you see the crassly sexualised comment ‘I would’ under a picture today, that picture will almost certainly be of some buff man and the commentator a woman. It seems that the more restrained and polite we men have learned to be, the more uninhibited and even rude women have become.
And just recently something in this vein particularly stung. An opinion piece written for the Daily Mail only last week, by Flora Gill, critiquing in the most extreme terms the trend for men to wear quarter zip jumpers.
Perhaps it didn’t help that as I read the piece, at that very moment, I was wearing a quarter zip jumper – and, if I’m honest, thinking I looked rather good in it. But suddenly I found myself under attack. My jumper was ‘revolting’, ‘drippy’ and ‘emasculating’. I found myself compared to the likes of Rishi Sunak, even Prince Harry.
Dear God. This was too much. I was enraged. And soon my mind was racing with all the terrible women’s fashion statements I had previously abhorred privately but publicly politely ignored.
And then I began to tot these things up. And I found there were rather a lot of them. Eleven, in fact.
So here it is – my list of women’s crimes against fashion.
1. Wedge-soled footwear of any kind
This was a Nineties monstrosity that I thought we had long seen the last of.
Something about those heady days, when role models for girls were ‘kick-ass’ types such as Geri Halliwell in her Union Jack dress, or Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, seemed to call for ‘ass-kicking’ footwear.
And by this peculiar logic, wearing footwear with extra-thick soles was seen as adjacent to empowering. In those days it was mostly boots – Croft’s were black and chunky – but in its revived form, the huge sole look is showing up on trainers. But the whole point of trainers is surely their functionality and clean lines – to impair that seems particularly dumb.
And they are just as hideous to look at as you’d expect. Which is why these Hoka and On ‘Cloudmonster’ designs are known collectively as ‘ugly shoes’. Not even Halliwell would wear such things now – and neither should you.
2. Bella Freud jumpers
This is an unusual category, as it’s not the garment itself that bothers me here but the associations around it.
In fact they look just fine, which is why you might see, say, Kate Moss or Poppy Delevingne (pictured middle) in one.
But the problem is that anyone wearing one is also parading status and wealth by stealth. The logo will say something enigmatic like ‘1970’, but its real message is ‘I have £285 to spend on a tiny jumper’. Which is ghastly.
(As a complicating factor, I concede that my wife being partial to them may be an issue here too – leading me to question if we really are the kind of people who can afford such things.)
And don’t even start me on £1,000 handbags.
3. Loungewear as outdoor wear
This isn’t one that applies solely to women – both genders succumb and everyone looks bad in this.
But women have their own spin on it. Where men tend to go for loud, logo-heavy sport brands, women seem to prefer 50 shades of beige: oat, buff, stone, cream, ivory et al.
It looks even worse if both tops and bottoms match and, increasingly, they do. There is nothing wrong with these garments if worn for comfort indoors – but they are essentially pyjamas and so should not be worn past the threshold.
I blame those twin forces of pernicious style influence: reality TV stars Kim Kardashian and Stacey Solomon. In fact, the latter seems to think it fetching to clad her entire brood in this way. But it really isn’t, it’s both twee and naff.
4. Ties and waistcoats
This one crept up on me just recently. I noticed Nicole Kidman (pictured) in one, and then The Bear actress Ayo Edebiri, and soon enough they started to appear in the wild too: women in ties.
Often in a tie with a waistcoat.
And I predict this trend will only get worse: the death of Diane Keaton last month will give it fresh impetus, since Keaton practically invented the look in her titular role in the 1977 film Annie Hall.
But while it looked great on Keaton, it doesn’t work at all well in the real world: wearers inevitably look like they are serving drinks in provincial wine bars. Avoid.
5. Knee length quilted coats – aka ‘Arsene Wengers’
The biggest fashion crime seen in my lifetime is just coming into season. As soon as autumn turns fully to winter, from the backs of wardrobes out they will come: Arsene Wenger coats.
That’s my name for them anyway, because the first person that I ever noticed wearing one was the hoary old Arsenal manager who seemed to feel the cold more than most during his long touchline tenure – and made the toasty knee-length quilted coat his trademark.
From a men’s sports context it leached into the wider leisurewear scene and was soon, inexplicably, taken up by women, millions and millions of them, and almost all in dreary black or grey or navy.
They tell themselves they are only wearing it for comfort when walking the dog or picking up the kids, but soon they rarely take it off from November to April. And it’s hideous – the most unflattering coat in fashion history, making wearers, even Holly Willoughby (pictured), look like drab, grey blobs.
6. Ballet pumps
There is nothing wrong with these in principle – either actual ballet shoes or their fashiony counterparts – but in practice they invariably look a little dirty and so a little grim.
That’s because they are made to be worn in dance studios, not on the bus. You are not Margot Fonteyn, so perhaps put some actual shoes on?
I think their popularity stems from the emotional connection with childhood ballet lessons. But all that makes it is dressing-up-box fashion, which is always bad.
Ditto those popular retro leather boots with lots of lace holes – what I call ‘Emily Bronte boots’. (I assume they’re on-trend because so many women’s favourite book is Wuthering Heights.) As they look more elegant, I’ll give them a pass.
But ballet pumps are inelegant and it’s a firm no.
7. Fur ball pom pom bobble hats
Like the Wenger coat, these will be emerging any day now – as soon as it’s cold enough to make them wearable without wilting. Where did they come from and why?
I confess I have no idea. Perhaps there’s a connection with the proliferation of supposedly Canadian or Nordic parkas with fur collars? Or maybe not. All I know is that one day, about five years ago, I realised that every single woman on my train carriage was wearing one.
But why would you wear a hat that was both deeply unflattering and infantilising? You look as though your mum has just packed you off to primary school.
8. Mom jeans
There is absolutely nothing wrong with jeans. Women look fantastic in so many types and cuts. Just not these: high-waisted, short-legged and that horrible mid-blue colour that should have been consigned to the dustbin of history in 1987.
This is the garment of those who have given up.
Buying a pair is a cry for help. It should trigger a visit from some Trinny and Susannah-style fashion paramedics.
9. Very, very tight gym leggings
In recent years, it’s become completely normal to see women in public spaces who would appear, if viewed in silhouette form, to be completely naked from the waist down.
These eye-wateringly tight workout leggings have morphed from something initially just worn in the gym, then to-and-from the gym – and now apparently just worn.
Kim Kardashian (pictured) is clearly a fan.
How on earth did this become normalised?
For a man approaching a woman so clad, there is nowhere to look. It’s mortifying for one party – and tawdry for the other.
Wear something just a tiny bit looser please.
10. Big collars and big sleeves
I’m thinking of those ludicrously extended shirt collars beloved of the likes of Olivia Colman. Her character in the recent movie The Roses had a couple of horrors, for example.
Sitting with these are tops with half-length, batwing, billowy sleeves. There is simply no excuse to ever attempt this look.
The wearer is no doubt trying to evoke something quite serious – a new puritan vibe befitting the trad wife trend, perhaps.
But in reality they simply look clownish, as if they might blow away in the wind.
It is just as bad as the now notorious Eighties padded shoulders. Arguably worse.
11. Dryrobes
Why do so many middle-aged women seem to enjoy coldwater swimming? It’s a real puzzle. And why do so many of them seem to think this hobby requires them to acquire a ghastly £175 branded camo print de facto dressing gown?
They put comfort over style to a degree that anyone with any aesthetic sensibility will find deplorable – and yet they are proliferating everywhere.
I had hoped the Dryrobe’s association with the downfall of Angela Rayner – the then Deputy Prime Minister wore one while drinking prosecco on Brighton beach when her property scandal began – would see it fall from grace too. But no such luck.
So that’s it. I’ve finally got this lot off my chest. If I have offended anyone I can only apologise – and blame Flora Gill.
