To describe the ‘gondolier’ look as a stealth one is only partially correct. The romance between fashion and workers’ uniforms has been long and inspired. This makes sense – fashion has a fixation on dolling up the functional and few things are more practical than fisherman waterproofs, the bleu de travail French jacket, and a plumber’s boilersuit. Chances are you own the parts – striped top, red neckerchief, wide-brimmed straw hat, wide dark trousers – you just haven’t viewed them as a sum.
Leandra Medine aka Manrepeller is a longtime advocate of the look: wide sailor trousers, a hat, a stripy top, a scarf tied with a flourish. Ditto Hilary Duff, who went as far as to stand on water in hers (although in fairness, it was a bikini, and a paddleboard not a gondola, but you get the idea). It’s a likely journey, also now that the age-old Gondolier Association of Venice (which protects the city’s 400-odd gondoliers) has a sponsor, which means all clothing worn has a logo to protect the industry. So surely fashion has the green light to borrow the old one?
Where to start? Striped shirts in the form of the Breton top have gone mass. On the high street this season they have a few added twists, cuts and folds. Meanwhile, red neckerchiefs are a pan-seasonal bestseller at Levi’s. Straw hats are, of course, a Martha’s Vineyard perennial but also acceptable for those among us who don’t holiday with the Obamas (see Borsalino and Asos).
The brave among us could do worse than a pair of Italian slippers (a little at odds with the modernisation of the Venetian waterways but stay with us) and which have been flipped into something everyday-ish by Robert Clergerie. The real thing – felt slippers called furlane, named so after the Friuli region of northern Italy – have been repurposed by Le Monde Beryl for the Italian fashion market.
The trick, perhaps, is the softly-softly approach – take two components rather than head-to-toe – and view it as simply a poaching of practical tics. Otherwise, well, you risk venturing into fancy dress, and that will ruin the “worker look” for everyone.
