6 style realisations we had in 2020, from TV setting fashion trends to new views on models

Small can be wonderful when it comes to weddings

The biggest weddings of the year also happened to be among the tiniest. This was by necessity – Covid restrictions wrecked plans for many a bride’s big day by limiting guest lists to 60, then 30, then 15 (or six, in Tier 4).

Some brides went even further. There were only 20 guests at Princess Beatrice’s marriage to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (including the Queen, who looked on with pride as her granddaughter wed in a Norman Hartnell gown she first wore some 60 years ago). Lily Allen, pictured above, married David Harbour in a Las Vegas ceremony in a neat off-the-shoulder Christian Dior minidress. Their witnesses were Allen’s two daughters, and “Elvis”, their officiant.

Meanwhile, non-famous brides also discovered the stylish side of scaling back. In the process, they restored something to weddings that had been lost on the way to the altar in so many mega-nuptials: the centrality of love, commitment and family in any marriage. And no doubt a few brides found another upside. All those savings from not having to feed and water 250 guests can go a long way toward a dream dress. EC

TV is the new catwalk

This was the year costume designers became the new celebrity stylists and dissecting red carpet fashion meant talking about the gowns Emma Corrin wears in The Crown. In summer we were dreaming of wearing a black cotton sundress and eating ice cream in an Italian piazza, as Daisy Edgar-Jones does in Normal People. By November, we were eyeing up Nicole Kidman’s vintage velvet coats, burgundy boots and pussy-bow blouses in The Undoing.

Netflix may soon be more powerful than Vogue when it comes to influencing how we dress. I know I’m not alone in having analysed the often questionable outfits on Emily in Paris, The Duchess and even Selling Sunset with the same attention to detail I once reserved for haute couture. The Queen’s Gambit had me rooting through my wardrobe for wool minidresses and knee-high boots.

Looking ahead, The Serpent, the BBC’s new crime drama, looks promising, on the basis of Jenna Coleman’s Seventies suits and hairstyles alone. Fashion shows, parties and red carpet events will, of course, be back, but the lucrative relationship between the streaming services and luxury fashion brands is clearly only getting started. MT

Real people make great models too

Fashion shoots were among the many activities cancelled in the UK’s first Covid lockdown in late March. Or not cancelled, but reconceived, with designers devising ways to photograph new collections that were less crew-intensive and closer to home.

For many, this entailed tapping friends, family members and influencers for pavement photo shoots. Emilia Wickstead enlisted eight entrepreneurs, including Emily Caron, founder of sourdough delivery service Good In Bread, to showcase her delicate floral print pieces.

Gucci’s Alessandro Michele and Burberry designer Riccardo Tisci called on staffers. “I am so proud of this collection which not only reflects and celebrates the unique codes that make the house, but also the diversity of talent that represents our Burberry community,” Tisci said of a shoot that included copy coordinator Tanisha wearing a checked trench on her own doorstep in East London.

All these non-models were nevertheless rather model-esque. So much so that, along with adding interest (so these are some of the people behind the collections), this approach impressed: my, what an awful lot of attractive people there are out there! It’s almost enough to make you feel for career models. Almost. EC

Shorts and old dresses can count as royal dressing

Everything has felt quite topsy-turvy this year and though the royals have done a magnificent job of providing a sense of consistency, they have also had their own style shake-ups.

The Duchess of Sussex took us on a wild ride, creating what some dubbed a “revenge” wardrobe of regal looks (bold gowns and exuberant hats) for her final round of royal engagements before swinging to laid-back chambray shirts and shorts once she relocated to Los Angeles.

Patently, this was all to telegraph her departure from the Royal family, but it nevertheless felt like a redefinition of the genre. Elsewhere, we’ve seen both the Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Beatrice embrace the vintage trend in vintage, dresses. Bea borrowed one of Granny’s (as above) while, back in March, Kate debuted an Oscar de la Renta polka dot frock thought to date from the Eighties.

Even the Duchess of Cornwall has contributed to new royal style with several pictures of her in jeans and a strikingly elegant all-black look (once a hue reserved for mourning), topped off with leopard-print mask for a community centre visit. What will they try next? BH

We really love our hairdressers

When I was in my late teens, my mother gave me a book for Christmas called Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me: A Guide to Living with Impeccable Grace and Style.

We laughed, but I still read it and years later have forgotten everything it taught me other than one rule, which was bolded and italicised and put right at the front of the book. A good haircut, the author insisted, will have more impact on the way you look than any piece of clothing.

I went on to become a fashion editor, so of course I believe in the transformative power of clothes, but 2020 has shown this maxim to be true. A beautifully put together designer outfit means nothing if your hair is a scraggly mess of split ends and unintentional grey streaks.

And while we all did our best to limp through April, May and June, by the time salons reopened in July even the Duchess of Cambridge had resorted to tying her famous locks in a tight ponytail.

With the prospect of a nationwide lockdown, a winter of fringes in our eyes, non-blonde blondes and grown-out bobs is looking increasingly likely – until we fall, weeping with gratitude, into the arms of our hairdressers again. God bless them all. MT

We’re saying Goodbye to Trumpism, hello to Kamalaism

It was starting to feel quite normal, wasn’t it? All those spindly Louboutins, slinky sheath dresses, the glossy blow-dries and 50 shades of blonde.

The image projected from the White House has, on and off for quite some time now, set the tone for perceptions of fashion. In the past four years, it’s been about a moneyed display of so-called Republican chic which has often swerved the modern possibility of harnessing style in a meaningful way (well, meaningful beyond “check out my Birkin”).

The year ends with the promise of a new woman at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and this time, she won’t be working from the East Wing (the traditional abode of First Ladies) nor will she have gained her position thanks to marriage rather than merit.

Kamala Harris is the first female vice-president and will bring with her an appreciation of the unifying, symbolic power of clothes. See the way the first post-election image showed her in Nike workout leggings (just do it), the way she is rarely seen without the pearls which signify her ties to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority or the way she’s as likely to be seen in Converse trainers as heels.

Stiletto shares may slide, but prepare for some seriously clever style moments. BH