Among all the playfully conflicting trends of 2025 — naked dressing, wellness dressing, 24/7 party-girl dressing — there is my personal favourite: dressing like a mysterious, slightly emotionally repressed heroine in a mid-century psychological thriller. A perfectly arched eyebrow, an upsweep of hair, an exquisitely tailored suit or coat. All accessorised with a kind of enigmatic assurance — an insouciance that is both sensual and subtly reserved.
Fashion returns time and again to a particular sort of elegance embodied by the Hitchcock heroine, who is having her moment this season courtesy of Prada and Miu Miu (of course), as well as Huishan Zhang, Emilia Wickstead and Erdem. Sarah Burton, too, described her highly anticipated Givenchy debut as “quite Hitchcock”. It’s a look, but also a mood — one that played out recently on next season’s catwalks (and, perhaps more importantly, on the street outside the shows) in the form of cinched waists, brooches and gloves — gloves! — peeking from coat cuffs and tucked into belts.
It’s a little Sciura glam (a stylish Milanese woman of a certain age), and makes me feel it’s time to take out the Hermès skirt suit I found in a vintage shop in Venice: a nipped-waist jacket and a matching wiggle-room-only pencil skirt, made from wool so fine it has a silk-like lustre.
Of course, anything to do with Hitchcock carries with it a certain degree of caution. He had a famously egregious attitude to his leading ladies, exerting control over them both within and beyond the filming process. I admire the films and am inspired by them in my writing, yet any discussion brings up the awkward question of whether we can separate the art from its creator. One thing I am clear on is that we can celebrate the women and their fabulous ways of wearing clothes: Eva Marie Saint, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, Ingrid Bergman — and also the brilliant woman who dressed so many of them, Edith Head.
The costume designer created the glorious New York It-girl wardrobe for Kelly in Rear Window, that iconic eau-de-nil skirt suit for Hedren in The Birds (a colour Miuccia Prada directly referenced in a skirt this season), and Novak’s to-die-for coat in Vertigo. (Side note: have you seen how stylish Eva Marie Saint remains at 100 years old?)
Grace Kelly in Rear Window
What I love about fashion is the opportunity it provides to create character. We all contain multitudes, and fashion allows us to express them. The Hitchcock-heroine look came into being at a time when style was much less mutable — when, to be seen in a certain way, one had to dress in a particular way, choosing whether to be a Jackie or a Marilyn. Now, fashion offers an element of play and transformation.
While there might be fewer occasions where we really dress up, this makes it all the more fun — indeed, radical — to go the whole hog. Just as there is a time to wear the naked dress, there is arguably a time to play ladylike: to wear the matching skirt and jacket, the brooch and, yes, if you’re feeling brave, even the gloves.
As a writer, I spend much of my time at home in a revolving wardrobe of boyfriend jeans and oversized knits, yet I enjoy making an effort. On the odd occasion I put on a silk shirt and pencil skirt, I like daydreaming that I’m about to step behind the wheel of my (imaginary) dust-grey Aston Martin coupé and take off down the California coast to escape — and seduce — a new lover.
However, I’m personally not a fan of anything too perfect, mainly because it is out of my reach. I’m a nail-biter, a mascara-smudger, impatient with a steamer. My foundation once exploded in the only really bougie handbag — Loewe — I’ve ever bought. What appeals to me about the modern interpretation of this “ladylike” look is that outfits include a built-in sense of rebellion alongside exquisite tailoring.
The notes for Prada AW25 reference “raw seams exposed with intention”. A classically shaped, very Vertigo coat comes in acid lime-green leather. The pencil skirts feel slightly slouchy, less constrained; the cowl collars a little askew. It suits our anxious times: the need for control in an increasingly out-of-control world, undercut by an honesty about how much control can actually be achieved.
Ultimately, the look works for me — and I’m sure it will for many others. It encompasses two conflicting aspects of my fashion personality: a desire to look pulled-together, subverted by inevitable scruffiness. And so I’ll wear that vintage Hermès jacket separate from the skirt, perhaps with my baggy Acne jeans. The 2025 version of the Hitchcock heroine is perhaps one after the birds have had a bit of a peck at her. And that suits me just fine.
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