Size matters, especially with fashion. How big or small something is can define an era: tiny skirt, 1960s; huge shoulders, 80s. Right now, fashion is embracing the big, the giant, the oversized. It’s a shift, five years on from the days of bodycon dresses and shorts so brief the pocket linings poked below the hem. Contrast that to the scene outside the recent fashion shows, where the peacocks dressed to be photographed in their finery are only just visible inside it. Hoodies are huge and worn with the hood up, the sleeves pulled over hands. Bags are enormous, killing off the status symbol trick of carrying only your phone in your hand (subtext: someone else is carrying your stuff). Coats (weather and cramped seating, be damned) are supersized, enveloping the wearer in goose-down cosiness. Trousers are worn so that the hem trails on the floor.
This mirrored the key shows of the season: Vetements, Chloé, Gucci, Yeezy and Stella McCartney. And it looks fine on the catwalk: but what about real life? I took fashion’s latest trend to the streets to find out.
The mega bag: ‘It won’t endear me to rush-hour commuters’
Like anyone who goes to the gym from work via the supermarket to pick up the ingredients for that night’s green curry, it’s a rare day when I manage to cram everything into one bag. There’s usually an overspill bag, a handbag and a carrier, for which I have, with a bit of resentment, paid 5p. To take one, teeny jewel-like handbag is an alien concept. And it’s not just me: with hot-desking on the up, more people need a mega bag to cart their stuff.
Fashion loves to take a real life problem and play with it, in the way a cat plays with a dead bird for fun. So as a flip to the microscopic bag, there are now massive bags, big enough to hold a school-age child and their puppy, if you were so inclined (see Instagram for evidence). Huge man bags at Christopher Raeburn were more like a suitcase than a laptop holder; at Prada menswear (of all places), there were Ikea-type tarpaulin sacks and backpacks, with shoes tied on, Glastonbury-style.
And then there’s a version by Balenciaga, the French fashion house overseen by Demna Gvasalia. I spend a day with this bag. It’s about 50cm x 50cm, big, bold and brash. It’s so comical that there are smiles all round when it arrives in the office. On the street, I get quizzical looks (at London fashion week, by contrast, I spotted loads crammed under seats). Those looks are partly down to the fact that it’s designed to look like a laundry bag (a bit of fashion irony). Compared with the Lariat, the previous Balenciaga It bag, it’s a sort of spoof, so big it’s almost unusable. Try as I might, I can’t squeeze it into a gym locker, and it wouldn’t exactly endear me to other commuters at rush hour. You would struggle to fit it into Ryanair’s cabin baggage allowance (55cm x 40cm) and it wouldn’t pass through the turnstiles at a football match. And, at £1,495, filling it with dirty laundry would be a form of high-fashion sacrilege. I have to say, though, this is why I love it. It’s a statement bag that is as big as its reputation.
Wide trousers: ‘As Mary Berry knows, soggy bottoms are no good’
On paper, wide-leg trousers look the easiest of the oversized trends to wear. I’m thinking Katharine Hepburn on the golf course, Lauren Hutton, Marlene Dietrich – people who do elegance so well. And they certainly make a change from skinny jeans. When I put on a pair in dove grey wool by Karl Lagerfeld’s own brand, the word “swoosh” comes to mind. There’s air about my legs. It’s very welcome.
I wear these trousers on a blue-sky day, one of those days when it feels like it will never rain again. In these conditions, they are great; elegant even. They would probably look good with heels but I like them with trainers, even if they do hang on the floor. I manage to avoid tripping up while wearing them which, for someone with the coordination of a toddler, is an achievement, and probably a one-off. A lot of high fashion should come with a health and safety warning anyway – from hobble skirts to the aforementioned skinny jeans. At least these are comfortable.
But where do we go with the wide leg on other days, the ones when it rains interminably, when you forget your umbrella and have to wait 40 minutes for a bus? As Mary Berry knows, soggy bottoms are no good to anyone. They pick up a day’s worth of detritus from the street and require regular cleaning. The trend isn’t going anywhere, though: Instagram is full of fashion insiders in long trousers “pooling” around heels. Victoria Beckham’s post-show bows are watched closely by fashion editors – and what was she wearing in September, after her most recent fashion show? Wide-leg trousers, a shirt and flat sandals. I’m in, or a fair-weather fan, at any rate.
Super-long sleeves: ‘Eating and working prove problematic’
Warning: this look can make drinking coffee a hazardous activity. The mega-long sleeves seen at Gucci, Hood By Air and Marc Jacobs look dramatic but make it tricky to get your flat white near your mouth. So I found out while wearing this dress by Vetements – the most fashion of fashion brands for 2016, which is also overseen by Demna Gvasalia. Sleeves are its thing, partly because stompy teenagers are also its thing, and stroppy youth and too-long sleeves go hand in hand. Gvasalia is rarely out of a hoodie himself, and always pulls the sleeves over his hands.
As a former stroppy youth, I feel at home in a dress that has something of Emily the Strange about it, especially as it says, “Drink from me and live forever” (no idea) down one sleeve in gothic script. This is definitely designed to scare parents, or confuse them. Someone even compares me to Wednesday from The Addams Family, and who doesn’t appreciate that? I enjoy the fabric-over-the-hand feeling – probably for the same reason teenagers do; I feel safe and cosy.
This is a Kanye West-patented trick. When he made his airport sweater for APC in 2013, it came with extra-long sleeves to cosy in to on a flight. He’s been the patron saint of the long sleeve ever since and, as pop culture’s best overgrown adolescent, so he should be.
But practical difficulties endure. Coffee is one thing, but as a writer, sleeves that cover most of a keyboard prove problematic. And then there’s eating. Sandwiches are just about doable. Salads, not really, unless you want to bring the smell of olive oil to an afternoon meeting.
The padded jacket: ‘I am the biggest person in the office lift’
I loved this orange coat the moment I saw it on the runway for Marques Almeida. There’s nothing like a really huge padded jacket to make you feel cosy. And, yes, that is partly because it’s like doing a Bridget Jones and wearing a duvet for the day. There are loads of duvet coats on the catwalk this season, from McCartney to Balenciaga, but this is my favourite because it bears the closest resemblance to the Stay Puft marshmallow man.
Marques Almeida are a duo known for shredded denim and slacker style. This jacket has a bit of rave culture about it, and a nod to Missy Elliott in the Supa Dupa Fly video (in which the rapper has a shiny black puffy jacket and looks like a fly).
When I wear it to the office, colleagues liken me to Drake (in a huge coat in the artwork for Views), Arsène Wenger on the touchline, and Staryu from Pokémon Go. I’ll take that. Less so its massive bulk –something obvious before you put it on, but still a shock in practice. It’s like wearing a fat suit. I’m the biggest person trying to get into the office lift, and the escalator is laughable – no one can pass me with this bad boy on.
It looks practical (warm, light and all those other things that outdoorsy types like) but forget about any of that. To make it fashion rather than hill worthy, you need to wear it off the shoulder and slouchy, so people can see what you’re wearing under it. I try this and it works, in that I would definitely get some funny looks on a Yorkshire Dale. And this, my friend, is what makes this coat a hands down fashion winner.
How to keep it in proportion
When it’s oversize
Sleeves over hands
Crisp, white, boxy shirt
Trouser hems pooling at the heel
Wide legs, wide hems
Duvet coat
Bucket hat
Boyfriend jeans
When it’s just too big
Shoulders halfway down upper arm
Wee Willie Winkie’s shirt
Trouser hems on the floor
Low crotch
Duvet
Ten-gallon hat
Your boyfriend’s jeans
