6 1R T Wednesday July 18 2018 | the times The high street secret to looking on trend

If you want to look more fashion than victim, there’s a flattering brand to try, says Anna Murphy

f Arket isn’t on your radar it It’s really good on , such as should be. Although I entirely a navy boat-neck understand why that might mididress (£69) and a floaty not be the case. Brands, drawstring-waisted terracotta maxi brands, brands. There are so (£99). But what it is really, really good many of them around. It’s at is well-cut such as the been the biggest change in all lovely button-fronted navy wool-twill my years of writing about sailor pair (reduced to £45), also fashion. The seemingly endless available in cream cotton (£69). It’s the From left: £118, Maeve I at anthropologie.com; launches, each with its attendant trews, along with the , that have hype. Even my eyes have the taken the front row by storm. £39, topshop.com tendency to glaze over when Beep, beep. Arket is now officially on I am told about another new label, the radar. and it is my job to keep tabs on such things. Arket, which is part of the H&M My search for the perfect sun — group, launched last year and has a it’s finally over handful of branches in the UK. It It probably gives you a good idea as to Summer’s hot hasn’t had much time to how commercially minded I am that penetrate our my big concept for making money to consciousness, and date has been a sun-hat company. doesn’t seem to be Thing is, I think there would be cash in a hurry to do so. in it. It is nigh on impossible to find a When I was told H&M hat that looks as good when it comes colour? Say was conjuring up another out of a suitcase as when it goes in. brand I wondered why And now that the message has got and what, given that it through that we all need to cover up already had pretty much in the sun, it behoves us more than every aesthetic base ever to track one down. hello to yellow covered courtesy not just My friend Wendy has one of H&M, but of & Other that she bought years ago — a Stories and Cos, among broad-brimmed stiff-but-not- If millennial pink didn’t you, fear others. I enacted what too-stiff fabric hat — and we might best be described keep wondering if we should as a watching brief. get it copied. I know, right? not — yellow will, says Harriet Walker And now, having Next stop billionairedom. watched, I feel ready to I have tried to be that woman ou’d be forgiven for As women used to having their brief. I can definitively who sits with her hat on her lap wondering whether photograph taken, they have perhaps declare there to be both a on a flight, and I can report that a memo had gone out realised — as fashion editors have “why” and a “what” as far I am not. Plus don’t even think to the women of the been trying to tell us for some time — as Arket is concerned. about putting a hat in an 1 per cent last week. that yellow is surprisingly flattering. Here are keenly priced overhead locker, even a Subject line: yellow. On all skin tones. You heard me. clothes for grown-ups business-class one. I had an First the Duchess of I’ve only recently come round to this that look fashion rather upgrade once, thought I would Sussex showed up at a idea. As a pale-skinned Celt, I always than victim; lightly on chance it, and my hat suffered YCommonwealth event in an egg-yolk presumed yellow was off limits to trend, not slavishly so. It a career-ending downgrade. Brandon Maxwell sheath, then the anyone who requires more than factor doesn’t do girlie — that’s Wendy’s hat, on the other Duchess of Cambridge wore pure 25, until I tried on a sunny pleated for & Other Stories — yet it’s more hand, has been pulled out sunshine Dolce & Gabbana to feminine, more flattering than the of an assortment of bags and Wimbledon and Melania Trump chose front-row favourite, Cos. It too tends suitcases in my presence and a lemon Gucci in which to towards the minimalist, but it avoids always looks exactly as it did touch down in Helsinki. the austere and/or the bulkily cut. It’s when it went in. Days earlier, Flotus arrived for Gen-Z yellow also obsessed with quality and So it’s a big deal for me supper at Blenheim Palace wearing a provenance, giving exhaustive details that I have found another chiffon by J Mendel in a shade is between on its website as to where everything that I believe ticks all boxes, most accurately described as evening Marigold gloves has come from. including the one not yet primrose, a supplement she is All of which explains why Arket is mentioned, which is the presumably also taking for its efficacy and mustard starting to give Cos a run for its Above, from : , accommodates-absolutely-massive- at alleviating stress. money among the fashion pack. It’s £79; , £55; , bonce box. (Me, not the perfectly If you want to know what a trend midiskirt in & Other Stories last week really good on tailored pieces, to wit £35; skirt, £59; , proportioned Wendy.) Travaux en cycle looks like, look no farther than (£49, stories.com) and realised it did as this safari jacket (£79, arket.com). It’s £69, all arket.com. Cours’ presents like a classic the little yellow dress. After it tap- good a job as fake tan at taking the really good on colour, as in the crisp Below: Travaux en iteration, effortlessly chic until you danced into our consciousness on glare off my milk-bottle calves. cotton poplin short-sleeved in a Cours’ fedora come off that flight to the Med, in Emma Stone in La La Land, Alicia The shops are full of the stuff, from delicious cerulean that is the best blue other words. But it’s made from Vikander, Dakota Johnson and Emily Warehouse’s tie-back cotton I have seen on the high street in yonks texturised paper rather than straw, so Ratajkowski all wore yellow on the red (£39, warehouse.co.uk) to Maeve’s (£45), which comes with matching can be folded up in your luggage. It’s carpet. Next came the street-stylers, polka-dot version (£118, chinos (£45). Or similarly the hot-rose, also available in four sizes. who were decked out in banana-hued anthropologie.com) and Topshop’s long-sleeved cotton shirt that’s a My business plans may be by Tibi and draped mustard silk flamenco-ish yellow (£39, pink without equal at this price point scuppered, but I am so happy with from Jacquemus. When Amal Clooney topshop.com). The Topshop website (£35) and can be paired with a my new hat that I don’t care. £60, wore yellow Stella McCartney for the describes the last as a “trending gathered satin-effect skirt in the same petershamnurseries.com royal wedding in May, the product”, which means you had better gorgeous hue (£59). Instagram: @annagmurphy establishment finally came on board. hop to it. In fact, according to the the times | Wednesday July 18 2018 1R T 7 fashion Glamorous, yes, but also the hen party from hell

have been on many hen do’s — all I remember of Team Chiara Ferragni 2015 and 2016 is a blur of at her hen party penis straws and prosecco corks — but II’ve never attended one that looked anything like that of Chiara Ferragni, the “super-influencer” and fashion blogger who this weekend took a gang of friends to Ibiza and documented it all on Instagram. Ferragni has more than 13 million followers on the photo-sharing site, and reports on her net worth estimate it at Melania Trump in Gucci about £26 million; at Harvard Business School she is studied as a modern entrepreneur, with an The Duchess of Sussex in empire built on Brandon Maxwell leveraging her own image in exchange for sponsorship deals. She started by launching Melania Trump in J Mendel the blog The Blonde Salad, and clarified her intentions in an early post: “The name is ‘The Blonde Salad’ because this blog is gonna be a salad of myself.” Fully absorb this and I think you’ll already have an Colour co-ordinated hens idea of what to expect from her hen do. ticked off a cocktail-making class, a She started trailing it like a new pole-dancing tutorial (which nobody Star Wars in the middle of last week, is enthusiastic about except the quickly establishing an official bridesmaid who organised it) and a hashtag, #chiaratakesibiza. shouty karaoke session. The bride Spontaneous whimsy? It seems not. should have had the time of her life, When her “bachelorette” gang were but only remembered the first 45 eventually pictured together over the minutes of each day; she would also weekend, they had all been outfitted have had a group of friends from retail data company Edited, demand stylist Anna Berkeley. “If you have in matching red school whom none of the other hens for yellow pieces has consistently warm skin, mustard and rich golds emblazoned with that hashtag would like, either because they outstripped supply. are will suit you.” (Ferragni wore a white “bride to be” nursed one glass of wine all evening “The uptick is partly driven by the That said, it also depends on suit instead). They also arrived in and refused to the stripper or current cultural climate,” says how much yellow, how close to custom-designed Alberta Ferretti because they groped a bouncer and Leatrice Eiseman, the executive your face it will be, and what sequinned bomber jackets; pink for got the entire group thrown out of director of the Pantone Color you’re wearing it with. My the bride, blue for the chorus line. the Revolution vodka bar. Institute, which recently called Stories skirt is a warm tone Not that we saw much of the hens. Surely a snap of Ferragni posing “Gen-Z yellow” (somewhere on a cool-skinned person, Ferragni posted 20 photographs of with her arms around a “butler in between Marigold gloves and but a white T-shirt stops herself over the weekend, all good the buff” on one side and a comedy French’s mustard) the new it making my face look enough to suggest a professional inflatable phallus on the other must “millennial pink”. “We’re sallow. Berkeley also photographer, plenty of sleep and not have been deleted by accident. looking for hope, and yellow suggests wearing much letting down of hair. Where was the moment the maid of represents optimism,” she says. yellow with pink. Backdrops varied. There was the honour was turned away from the That might explain why there I’d recommend luxurious 7 Pines Resort, tagged with Popworld club in Bristol because isn’t much of it around in browsing the & Other #adv to let her followers know that she’d just vomited Jägermeister on Westminster, and why the Stories website since it this was paid advertising. (Poor the pavement? Who was in charge of royal family are trying to jolly has lots of shades. I also Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey, the camera from 3am onwards, when us along with theirs. More like Arket’s cropped dragged over the coals in 2000 when the last few standing worked their likely, though, is that the trousers (£59, arket.com). they posed with Cadbury Snowflakes way through six packets of Monster prolonged sunshine has Don’t think of it as a at their wedding, were simply ahead Munch and a bottle of limoncello? opened British eyes to yellow summer fling, either — a of their time.) Usually hen pictures are shared and we’ve all gone a bit yellow will zing Then there was a yacht, and a only with a select few because it’s Carmen Miranda in the heat. up your winter with a grey couple of shots to go supposed to be a private outing in How to wear it, though, given that underneath, and those with it. There was a somewhat which you can make an utter berk of the shades range from glowing trousers would work with a navy unconvincing photo of tiny Ferragni yourself without fear of public sunset tones to harsher neons? It . Last week I went to see a holding a forkful of spaghetti shaming. It’s sad to imagine having depends on your skin tone. One preview of John Lewis’s autumn somewhere nearish to her face. to be on duty and professionally lit easy way to establish yours is The Duchess of Cambridge in womenswear line (it launches in There were also for Chiara — under those circumstances. Perhaps whether you prefer gold or silver Dolce & Gabbana September) and the rails were full not one but two — and a sparkling Ferragni’s do had all of the silliness since gold is more of a rich Dijon tone on and spelling out “bride to be”. and indignity of a normal hen party, likely to suit warm complexions. separates that I think will be a hit. What she didn’t share online were but the bride-to-be chose not to “Roughly speaking, if you Until then, though, make hay any of the elements I remember from share that with her followers. That have cool-toned skin, you will while the sun shines. And by hay, I my henning career. She didn’t appear seems entirely plausible. She’s really look better in lemon and citrus mean Pantone shade 1205. to have “taken Ibiza” at all. terribly down-to-earth. shades,” says the personal Twitter: @harrywalker1 Traditionally the group should have Hattie Crisell