Anna in Victoria Out
Is it just me or is anyone else itching to chin the next apparently fashion-led individual who claims the likes of Coleen McLoughlin or heaven forbid Victoria Beckham are style icons? If money, fame and stylists surround an individual, they’re inexorably bound to be well dressed. However, only a select few individuals can be deemed worthy of the title ‘style icon.’
If you were plucked out of obscurity, thrust into the public eye due to having a very, very well paid footballer on your arm, stalked by paparazzi, showered with gifts of beautiful clothing and (….wait for it) even paid to wear these clothes, outfitted for you by stylists, I’m sure you could look like the next Kate Moss too. Bring out soon to be Mrs Rooney. We seem to have quickly forgotten the days when Col rocked the velour tracksuit/Uggs combination in all shades of the Juicy rainbow. Or, I hasten to add, when Posh proudly strutted in public wearing a black leather jacket and trousers combo, complimented by her husband wearing the identical male equivalent (probably wishing he was playing football instead). This atrocious behaviour continued until a stylist accosted them in their tracks saying “Are you on crack? Wear this instead!”
One understands that not everyone is born into fashion/or great wealth/a prestigious position in the fashion world, like Bee Schaffer (Anna Wintour’s daughter). Also, that you don’t have to have been memorising Vogue for the last three years to be deemed a fashion icon in the future. Fashionistas may be born, but they also bloom intrinsically through fashion school, via becoming a supermodel/actor/magazine editor. In-chief editor of American Vogue since 1988, Anna can be rightfully hailed a true style icon and hero. Admittedly, she had a good start in life with her father being editor of the ‘Evening Standard’, but she was not handed an Alexander McQueen high-waisted satin pencil skirt, Louboutin heels, a Vive West shirt and propelled onto the publicity catwalk. Instead, she achieved this fashion feat by living the fashion journalist dream, attending runway shows and reaching her own conclusions, becoming the razor-cut bob, sunglasses wielding woman we see before us today. Her success is not about being famous.
From editors to stylists, Rachel Zoe has been hailed as many things, the spectrum of thoughts is summed up by the Times’ headline ‘Fashion’s number one stylist, or just a big zero?’, whilst she was outfitting Hollywood’s top celebrities in moon-shapes (and sized!) shades, skinny jeans and sexy heels. Size zero or not, why aren’t her efforts appreciated more than the mindless females who are dressed by her? No offence, as we all take inspiration from various sources, but you should strive to be individual and unique; different to the girls you sit next to in lectures. We should uphold the old-school Anna Wintour and the new-kid on the block Rachel Zoe as our style icons, saluting Sienna Miller (did you actually realise she is an actor too?), Kate Moss, Aygness Deyn, Mary-Kate Olsens an of this world who should be bowed to as the fashionistas of today’s society, as well as the hidden stylists who spend their lives dressing everyone else.
Yety Akinola
Comment
Have your say, tell us what you think...