If you are already planning your New Year’s Eve outfit, stop. It’s all about nonchalance this year; about presenting as if you are above caring, even if you very much aren’t. To be more precise, it’s all about the shirt.
The kind of women who have walk-in wardrobes groaning with gowns — expensively soignée individuals such as Tilda Swinton, Uma Thurman and Pamela Anderson — have recently been eschewing them even for the most special of special occasions: red carpets and the like. Instead they have been wearing what was originally strictly for the boys, the once common-or-garden shirt.
Not that there’s anything common or garden about the celebrity’s shirt of choice. Introducing the It shirt. The result of a collaboration between Chanel and the hallowed Parisian specialists Charvet, it’s from the first collection by Chanel’s new artistic director, Matthieu Blazy, and it’s a snip at three grand. I know. Stay well clear of the leftover cranberry sauce in that one.
Matthieu Blazy at Paris Fashion Week
VICTOR VIRGILE/GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY IMAGES
Those humble members of the fashion pack who have to think about meeting their mortgage repayments have been buying theirs at the British specialist brand With Nothing Underneath, in particular its dress shirt (£150, withnothingunderneath.com), or, if they want something that signals it’s party time in more disco ball way, Essentiel Antwerp’s style embellished with silver beads and sequins (£215, essentiel-antwerp.com). Arket’s another favourite, to wit its subtly voluminously sleeved white or black iteration (£75, arket.com), which would look great with Marks & Spencer’s faux Breakfast at Tiffany’s collar necklace (£35, marksandspencer.com).
Why is the shirt having a moment? Because, as discussed, nonchalance is having a moment, and the shirt channels that while at the same time, and somewhat contradictorily, signalling competency, if not downright dominance.
Yes, right now there are two theoretically different things (at least) going on in our collective consciousness when it comes to getting dressed, both of which originate from the same sense of dis-ease.
On the one hand, we don’t want to render ourselves vulnerable by looking as if we have tried too hard. On the other, we want to circumvent the vulnerability that can come from not looking pulled-together. That’s why the world is full of hipster 19-year-olds dressed like middle management.
The so-called party shirt — basically a shirt jazzed up a bit by way of (maybe) heels or (maybe) jewellery or (maybe) something a tiny bit fancy on the bottom half — is the way stealthily to land yourself a top score come New Year’s Eve. Forget having your cake and eating it. This is having your shirt and wearing it. Done right, by which I mean worn right, it’s the pseudo-beta way to channel contemporary alpha.
From the perspective of a brand such as Chanel, the It shirt represents a cunning way to develop another money-spinning house code. What’s a house code? An instantly recognisable signature item that encourages customers to shop with one label rather than another. Now, suddenly, thanks to Blazy, lining up alongside the Chanel jacket, quilted bag and bi-colour pump is a Chanel shirt. Bingo. And, also, ker-ching.