London, Paris, Milan and New York Fashion weeks have put the final nails in the coffin: there is only one rule to follow in fashion and that is to take RISKS. Runways were adorned with louder than life pieces of clothing – clashing prints, fully sequinned outfits, even double denim. Highlights include Isabel Marrant’s Paris fashion week show, which saw models wearing denim boiler suits, metallic dresses, and bold print dresses with cowboy style white boots. The incredibly huge Jacquemus hat that took Instagram by storm over summer was echoed at this year’s fashion week with their larger than life bags. Practical they may not be, but they certainly tick the box of taking a risk in fashion.
This wave of rule-breaking styles at this year’s fashion weeks had already been foreshadowed by popular, high-street trends such as athleisure – suddenly it’s stylish to wear holographic cycling shorts and beige trainers. We’ve always been told that double denim is a big no-no, and clashing prints makes you look like your gran’s curtains, but fashion week has shown that this is no longer the case: fashion knows no bounds and doesn’t care about all the rules set in place before.
For this week’s fashion shoot, we took influence from the flood of rebellious fashions embraced recently by the biggest brands, taking to the streets of Oxford to find art, colour and vibrancy among the classic colleges. Playing with as many prints and textures as possible, we wanted to show this new-found playfulness in the movement of our models – spinning, jumping and exploring. We wanted to be daring in a place that can so easily become formulaic.
Trends such as clashing prints may be a gamble in everyday life: they could either attract many compliments or cause people to stare at you dubiously in the street, but to gamble is to be fashionable. After all, it’s only through gambling that styles ever become trends. Do you really think that the first person wearing fishnets back in the day was instantly admired? No, but the gamble pays off when even just a few people like your style. That’s if ‘gambling’ is even the right word, as now doing what is ‘wrong’ according to the fashion Bible is somewhat the norm…or even a safe option? We are in a post-rules fashion era, and that excites us here at Cherwell. So as fur coats sweep the high street, don’t fuss over only wearing plain trousers, get out your leopard print.
Credit
Photography: Skye Humbert
Stylists: Skye Humbert, Jaleh Brazel, Lara Drew
Models: Hakim Faiz, Yingmin Khoo, Ashley Broadhurst
Article: Rebecca Gregory
