Shopping in Hobbycraft has never been so fashionable. First it was for yarn, popularised by the cool and crafty batch of millennials leading a 2011 knitting renaissance. Now the pom-pom, in all its fluffy forms, has become the latest celebrity accessory.
On the red carpet it comes in a range of guises, from a white, boudoir-like fluff on the tip of the actress Lily James’s Louboutin toe to bright yarn balls on the ballerina Darcey Bussell’s oversized purse. Poppy Delevingne has been seen on Instagram, holidaying with pom-pom-lined straw hats, including a cobalt one by Yosuzi for £155.
The online high street retailer ASOS offers 120 incarnations on jeans and even brocade evening dresses. The shoe department is a storm of fluff. The silver Say You Do midi-heels (£35) with a pink spray sell out “as soon as they go on sale”, said the ASOS designer Amy Otter. The Say You Don’t version (£24) “inspired by childhood” is also a big seller.
The designer Cozette McCreery, of the knitwear label Sibling, whose autumn/winter 2013 collection featured pom-poms so big they almost the eclipsed the models, summed up the appeal. “What is a pom-pom but a ball of fluff, yet they have the power to make things fun and pretty,” she said.
Even the thinking-man’s designer Phoebe Philo showed head-sized pom-poms that dangled off the shoulder in her autumn/winter collection for Celine in Paris. One fluffy step further is Gucci’s autumn/winter showpiece: the lapdog-esque furry slipper. At £1,230 they are the must-have shoe of the season.
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Laura Weir, fashion editor at Vogue, said: “If you are a conservative dresser, a pom-pom hanging off your bag, belt loop or on the vamp of your shoes is a gesture of eccentricity that makes you look like you are part of the conversation, which is all about fun and standing out.”