Calling Pennywise of the forthcoming It reboot a style icon feels like a bit of a stretch. Not least because he’s a murderous clown, but because there’s barely a ruffle in the poster and in your bid to dress like a clown, ruffles are the crux.
Clown collars are the latest accoutrement to shift from stage-wear to shop. Think of the clown collar as a souped up choker which still feel a bit Y2K however you wear it. Some commitment is required. You can go fashion in peach J.W. Anderson inspired by Katharine Hepburn in 1935’s Sylvia Scarlett, or cream and clustered like Jane Fonda at the Golden Globes who lent towards Susan Forristal in Patou. Undercover’s Jun Takahashi went the whole hog showing models with ruffles, clown make up and medieval draping. Or you can wear your collar round your shoulders, as seen in this Vetements-inspired dress at Topshop.
The styling looks laughable on paper, not least because of the silhouette. But there could be a dual meaning. That fashion week is, as Suzy Menkes wrote in her now seminal New York Times essay, a circus, as the attendees ramp up their attempts to get noticed, be noticed and be photographed by wearing increasingly absurd outfits. And that this pushed the fashion pack against the “mob rule” and into hyper-minimal background dressing – see Celine and Chloe and 3/5 of the fashion world who now stick to a uniform monocolour – aka “black crows”. Dressing as a clown feels likes it’s winking at the in-joke, that fashion could be reclaiming its eccentricity and the clown collar is semaphore for this shift. Or it could be a homage to Stephen King’s Pennywise, albeit one we’d rather forget.
