Throwback Thursday: How to Dress Like a 90s Icon

It was the era of the slacker and the supermodel, grunge and Gen X—the nineties already felt iconic before the decade had even drawn to a close. Twenty years down the road, as we watch the defining fashions of the time resurface as fresh inspiration on the fall runways, we can’t help but associate the key moments with the women who first embodied them. From Kate to Winona to Gwyneth, the most stylish looks of the nineties are perhaps even more relevant in 2013.

Giambattista Valli's Valli Girls Share Their Favorite Looks

Giambattista Valli’s sublime 392-page coffee table book just hit stores and to celebrate, Vogue.com asked the designers’ beloved Valli Girls to share their most memorable looks.

Time Traveling: Vintage Shopping with Rapper Misfit Dior

Photographed by Jeremy Allen

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Here is what Laeticia Harrison-Roberts, aka Misfit Dior, is wearing for an afternoon of shopping at the Manhattan Vintage clothing show: an exquisite black-and-red-plaid swing coat and matching small-waisted sheath, a combo halfway between Betty Grable and Bettie Page; a narrow fake snake belt from Primark; Zara pumps; a red Givenchy purse, and a tiny hat perched on her undulating blonde Tippi Hedren–esque coiffure. It’s all period-perfect, until you notice that her slender arms are half-covered with expressionist tats, as if Marc Chagall had devoted himself to inky buxom viragos.
 
“My mom sewed this outfit in two days, she bought the fabric for a pound a yard at a market in East London! I usually wear pink, but she couldn’t find any pink on such short notice,” laughs Harrison-Roberts, whose mother makes virtually all her clothes from sketches her 29-year-old daughter, a rapper with fashion aspirations (more on this in a moment) provides. But there are things that mum, skilled seamstress that she is, just can’t whip up—vintage furs say, or structured handbags, or the funny little hats Harrison-Roberts loves. We are in search of all three, and whatever else catches her eyes, hidden today behind red Dior shades with purple stems.
 
At the very first booth, just inside the door, a strand of chubby pearls captures her imagination; less than a minute later, a framed handbag shaped like a little suitcase finds favor. “It’s almost like a laptop carrier, it’s the right size,” Harrison-Roberts observes, though in fact that invention is more than a half-century in the future.
 
But of course, it’s the ability to time travel, at least when it comes to clothes, that makes clothing shows like this so compelling. (The next edition is January 17 and 18.) While other shoppers are melting over beaded flapper frocks and Victorian lingerie, Dior is in love with mid-century fashion modernism, trying on a succession of big-shouldered furs, pancake flat chapeau, and gently caressing exquisitely wrought garments like a navy New Look dress with lacy insets. “I love the buttons!” Harrison-Roberts sighs. “They made things so beautifully back then.”
 
When she spied a full-on fox coat from the eighties which actually sports a Dior label she nearly swoons, but the price—$3,500—is not what an up-and-coming recording artist has in mind, regardless of her love of all things Dior. (On this subject she is quite knowledgeable, discoursing on one of her idols, the perennially leopard-clad Dior muse Mitzah Bricard.) So it is with great excitement that she uncovers another, shorter fox coat, perhaps showing a few signs of a long happy life and with a far less impressive provenance, but nevertheless chic and supremely wearable for $240.
 
This sublime purchase is rapidly stuffed into a shopping bag, and we repair for a coffee so she can fill me in on her extraordinary story. Harrison-Roberts grew up in the English countryside, in Sussex, but by fifteen was hanging out in London clubs til all hours. “My parents would pick me up at four in the morning,” she says with a smile.
 
As soon as she could, Harrison-Roberts moved to London, where she worked as a model and was an admitted hard partier. She loved rap and, in that way that young girls have, managed to talk her way backstage when Eminen was in town (maybe her chainmail top, pasties, and baggie jeans helped her case.) She quickly became friendly with his entourage, forming an especially close bond with Proof, who would take on the role of hip-hop Higgins to her rapping Eliza Doolittle. “He would critique all my rhymes, he mentored me,” she remembers.
 
On New Year’s Eve 2003, Harrison-Roberts arrived in the U.S., where she found an apartment in Williamsburg (where else?), worked the door at various clubs, attended open mics in Harlem, appeared on VH1’s Ego Trip’s (White) Rapper Show—“I left after two episodes; it was patronizing for me, but I got a lot of exposure”—and not accidently, watched a lot of Hitchcock movies, perfecting her personal style.
 
Though she is currently completing her first album—the premiere track of which is entitled, tellingly, “Hitchcock Blonde,” she confesses, “I love fashion! Fashion actually came before music for me.” Visions of boxy purses and tiny hats and full-skirted frocks dancing in her head, she lowers her glance, gives the slightest toss to her pale waves, and admits,  “I want to get one album out and then—I really, really want my own clothing line!”

London Calling: Roksanda Ilincic's Spring Store Opening

Roksanda Ilincic with her daughter Efimia.
Photo: Courtesy of Roksanda Ilincic

The tallest, willowiest member of London’s young establishment East End designer gang is staking her claim on the poshest West End shopping ground. Two weeks ago, a surprise display of unmistakable color-blocked dresses by Roksanda Ilincic appeared at 9 Mount Street with a notice on the window declaring: OPENING SPRING 2014. “It’s a big milestone for me and my label, and one of those rare moments in life when I feel that dreams sometimes do turn into reality,” she said with a smile.

Roksanda’s arrival practically turns a swath of London’s most elite shopping neighborhood into block party packed with British designer friends. Swing around the corner from Berkeley Square (where the nightingales sing) and along the imposing curve of red-brick Edwardian houses at the start of Mount Street, and it’s there you’ll see Roksanda’s spacious interior. This is the place where the red-lipsticked thirty-six-year-old with an addiction to vintage YSL is about to paint an entire picture of her quirkily feminine world. She’s kicked it off with a teaser installation designed in collaboration with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation—vivid, abstract-art inspired dresses which Net-A-Porter will launch exclusively on November 6.

Photo: Courtesy of Roksanda Ilincic

Roksanda’s new bolt-hole is almost next door to Nicholas Kirkwood’s ragingly successful shoe shop, right opposite Loewe (which will be stocked with J.W. Anderson’s designs for the label by next fall), and just a couple of doors along the row from the yet-unannounced address at which Christopher Kane will be opening his first store. Just along the same street, under tantalizing hoardings, is the vast Céline flagship Phoebe Philo which will open next year. Solange Azagury-Partridge’s new exotic jewelry box is positioned around the corner in Carlos Place. A short trot onwards, facing the Connaught hotel, and there’s Roland Mouret, the pioneering British designer in this area (which is designated by the halo term ‘Mayfair”) who has long been serving clients in his beautiful, many-storied townhouse. It is here that high-net-worth individuals are given to stay, lunch at Scott’s or Harry’s Bar, and then take in a spot of serious post-prandial fashion spending.

Clockwise from top left: Cate Blanchett, Jessica Chastain, Emma Stone, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, and the Duchess of Cambridge
Photo: (clockwise from top left) Brendon Thorne/Getty Images; Michael Loccisano/Getty Images; Fotonoticias/FilmMagic; POOL - Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images; Luca Teuchmann/WireImage; John Shearer/Getty Images for MRC

But what distinguishes a Roksanda Ilincic? “I’m inspired by art, architecture, and the notion of comfort and practicality,” she says. Over time—ever since she stepped out of Central Saint Martins—she’s serially used references to the bright side of 20th-century modernism:Ellsworth Kelly, Lygia Clark, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Oscar Niemeyer’s buildings in Brasilia, which she had seen on a family holiday expedition. The state of grace her design has reached can now be identified in the way she handles a silhouette, often with something exaggerated going on in the volume of a shoulder line, an oversize flourish of a bow, a chic explosion of a pom-pom corsage, an aerated flounce in a hem, or maybe a surprise streak of multicolored train pouring down the back of an otherwise sober A-line column. Other Ilincic-isms: her contrast-color waistbands, using opposing fabrics front and back, and the crowning gesture of a turban, headscarf or big, fat hair bow. (She can’t resist. She wears them, too.)

Often, she’s at her best in her resort collections, like this one. Something about it brings out the best in her sunny nature, as does her swimwear collection. “I design it just the way I design dresses,” she says. 

Looks from Roksanda Ilincic Spring 2014 swimwear
Photo: Courtesy of Roksanda Ilincic

Like all her great sister-designers, everything Roksanda designs flows from the way she lives, from her passion for abstract art to the scheme for her store (by avant-garde architect David Adjaye, who designed the first home for Ilincic and her husband Philip Bueno del Mesquita) to the adorable line of dresses for little girls, Blossom, which just happened to pop out naturally not long after the birth of her daughter, Efimia. “I remembered that my mother, Ranka, always used to have dresses made for me from the off-cuts of material from her own things when I was growing up in Belgrade,” she laughs. (A lot in Roksanda’s references to the exuberant color and poufy shapes of the eighties can be traced back to the influence of Ranka, a trained pharmacist with a hankering for high style in the then-communist Yugoslavia). Efimia and her little London friends model for mommy’s lookbook. So who’s the latest customer to be wearing Roksanda? None other than Harper Beckham. 

David Beckham with Harper Beckham in Blossom.
Photo: Cau/Blet/Sipa/Newscom

All that’s good news for the women who wear Roksanda, the people who’ve discovered how her vivid flair for “appearance” dressing undercuts formality to the exact degree it fits in with all the rules of appropriateness, while still standing out as elegantly characterful. Just like the designer herself, who sails through British fashion events, all cheekbones and bright lipstick, wearing the most dramatic of her long pieces (she wears long and midi full-time), and always accessorized with something from her personal hoard of mid-century modern jewelry. 

These days, Roksanda’s aesthetic is discreetly championed by the ultimate triumvirate of theDuchess of Cambridge, Samantha Cameron, and Michelle Obama, who all appreciate the high-impact simplicity of her signature crepe pieces for public parades, that demanding daytime slot in the wardrobe which includes such panics as “weddings” and “conferences” in other women’s lives. 

But, she also attracts individualists who love exploiting the drama of her eye-strobing  color combinations, especially when worn against a super-pale skin or clashed with strong hair color: Cate Blanchett, Florence Welch, and Liz Goldwyn being prime examples.

Five Stars: Daily Celebrity Style Sightings

In this series, we’re seeing stars: Every morning, we pick five celebrity looks and pinpoint the trend that defines them.

The temperature outside is cooling down, but the saturated shades on the red carpet are heating up. Rich, vibrant Crayola colors provide the palette for bold looks. Here, Kate Bosworth slips into a flounced hem electric blue dress with pronounced shoulders, while Reese Witherspoon puts a minimal twist on her red dress with neutral trim and coordinating sandals. Camilla Belle andLupita Nyong’o embrace Skittle-friendly shades for day and night, whileLindsey Wixson smolders in a light, sequined violet sheath.

 

The temperature outside is cooling down, but the saturated shades on the red carpet are heating up. Rich, vibrant Crayola colors provide the palette for bold looks. Here, Kate Bosworth slips into a flounced hem electric blue dress with pronounced shoulders, while Reese Witherspoon puts a minimal twist on her red dress with neutral trim and coordinating sandals. Camilla Belle andLupita Nyong’o embrace Skittle-friendly shades for day and night, whileLindsey Wixson smolders in a light, sequined violet sheath.

 

Alexa Chung Has It: Her New Book and Her Best Style Moments of 2013

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Alexa Chung’s signature look—an A-line dress paired with a flat shoe (usually in black or white) and topped off with a cat-eye-lined eye—makes a lot more sense when you find out that the fashion icon was once obsessed with Wednesday Addams and French New Wave muse Anna Karina. Although her trend-agnostic sense of style seems innate and effortless, the 29-year-old (like most of us), was once a young girl with more than a few sartorial missteps under her belt such as emulating the Spice Girls’s “sixties fashion in the nineties” wardrobe. In her new book It (Penguin), out today, the model/designer/TV host, shares her evolution through fashion, reflecting on everything from relationships to music. Part memoir, part how-to book, the tome is filled with personal photos and drawings, advice on what to pack for a music festival, and even the occasional piece of laugh-out-loud wisdom such as: “Boys say they don’t mind how you get your hair done. But then they leave you for someone with really great standard girl hair and the next thing you know you’re alone with a masculine crop crying into your granola.” We’re sure more than a few girls will have the pink cloth-bound book on their coffee tables or gift lists come the holiday season. In honor of her latest venture, we look back at some of Alexa Chung’s best fashion moments from this year.

Circus Maximus: Dakota Fanning and Carolyn Murphy Get Into the Fashion Mood in Montauk

Even fall in Montauk is festive—a riotous happening with daytime pajamas and nighttime abandon. Carolyn Murphy, Dakota Fanning, and Naomi Diaz and Lisa-Kaïndé Diazjoin the circus and fete the season's best looks.