It’s eyeball-fizzing and attention-grabbing, not to mention ludicrously high-maintenance. No wonder the street-style crowd and celebrity set are already tricked out in the biggest and brightest trend of the moment. Hold on to your dry-cleaning budget and get ready to WOW.
No, it isn’t a dance move — although the look does have something of the Barry Manilow to it. WOW stands for White on White. You might want to add some starch to your basket in advance.
White knitwear with white trousers. White boots and white dress. All of the above, with a white coat slung about your shoulders too — although technically this is a WOWOW, something even more beloved of the photogenic influencers who hang around outside the shows at fashion week. White blazer, white shirt, white scarf or collar, white hat. The one thing that doesn’t have to conform to the rule is perhaps the most important part of the outfit: a pair of black sunglasses to help with the glare. Let’s call this configuration a WOWEE: White on White Except Eyewear.
From the classic camel coat to the pale stone of a Burberry trench, we’ve long been used to upmarket oatmeal and tasteful greige to connote subtle and stealthy affluence via a soothing palette of expensive vanilla. Forget soft and tonal colour-matching along the putty or champagne end of the spectrum: your whites must now be flawless, unimpeachable and highly sharable on social media. Perhaps it’s something to do with all the hand sanitiser but, post-Covid, to look outstandingly bleached is now close to godliness. If God were on Instagram.
The fashion word for it is “optical”, presumably because a true WOW is one that slightly hurts your pupils to look at for too long. Optical means the whitest of whites, also known as a “Daz” in less rarefied circles. This isn’t the sort of white that most of your T-shirt drawer has gone: it’s box-fresh trainers, straight-out-of-the-tissue-paper silk. In other words, it is almost completely unsustainable.
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Forget leave and remain or John v Paul, the WOW divides us into those who were born to this sort of gleaming radiance and those who like to drink coffee and red wine. Who share a home with children or pets, or their aeroplanes with other people. WOW is a form of power dressing for people who don’t work in an office. Sorry, no — checks notes — for people who don’t work.
This is why the WOW has such a hold on those in the public realm. The Duchess of Cambridge, Melania Trump and Hillary Clinton have relied on wearing white to stand out from the crowd. It works in much the same way as the peasants recognising King Arthur in the Monty Python take on the Holy Grail: “He’s the only one not covered in shit.” Yet the all-white outfit takes things to an entirely new level of implausibility. Most of us only wear white on our wedding days, but for the 10k followers-and-above street-styler, every day is a stroll down the aisle.
So what can we learn from these always-the-bride types? Can one WOW in everyday life? I’m inclined to say no, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few takeaways.
Tip 1. A white coat: once the province of physics teachers and dental nurses, the white coat has become a signifier of great elegance. If yours is a muddy existence, with jammy toddler hands or a jumping dog, this is not an option for you. But a white coat raises even jeans and a jumper to Grace Kelly levels of old-school glamour. Look for something tailored (no white puffers) and slightly oversized. I like Zara’s textured bouclé number (£79.99) and the Cliff belted jacket by ba&sh (now £424, ba-sh.com).
Tip 2. White jeans: once one of fashion’s untouchables, these have become a hardy perennial but are never more chic than during the winter months when they are hardest to wear. My favourites at the moment are high-waisted wide-leg crops worn with black ankle boots. Try Arket’s barrel leg style (£69, arket.com) or Mango’s (£49.99, shop.mango.com).
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Tip 3. The white blouse: one of the most useful purchases I have made in the past year, my white blouse has been a Zoom staple, holiday essential and autumn layer. Look for frilly collars, cuff details and voluminous sleeves but perhaps not all at the same time. I like Sezane’s Edwardiana-style Sally (£95, sezane.com).
Tip 4. The white T-shirt: fashion editors wear Sunspel’s classic cut, which washes and washes and washes (£65, sunspel.com). Just don’t let it go grey over time.
Which brings us to tip 5. Laundry whiteners: the trad ones are full of chemicals that do your skin and the planet no good, but Ecover, Bower Collective and Wilton London offer green ways to stay whiter than white.
Will you WOW this winter? I’ve lingered on the impracticalities, but it might just be the perfect trend if there’s more social distancing to come. For now, however, steer clear of the mulled wine.
