Cashmere, silk, linen and velvet: these are fabrics we associate with class and sophistication. Vinyl clothing, on the other hand? Well, it certainly catches one’s eye from the shop windows of Soho.
Yet vinyl and its shiny cousins — patent leather, PVC — are no longer reserved for the kind of displays that might earn an 18 certificate. In recent months they have been mainstream and family-friendly, visible everywhere from Mango to Burberry and styled in every way from bohemian to tough. On the spring/summer 2018 catwalks, the Danish designer Malene Birger combined her wafty dresses and loose trousers with coats, shorts and frocks in vinyl and leather. At the other end of the fashion spectrum — the Paris blingfest that was the Balmain show — the supermodel Natalia Vodianova modelled a glossy jumpsuit with PVC shoes. On Sonia Rykiel’s runway one model wore a patent black bikini top and miniskirt, giving new resonance to the phrase “She would look good in a bin bag”.
How could a synthetic, polymer-based material such as vinyl — or even a look-at-me coated leather — be chic? Surely it’s too brazen, too flashy, too wipe-clean. It has a bad rap as a look favoured by suburban swingers and nightclub goths, but it need not be this way. The fashion industry has fallen in love with it and I think you may too. Bear with me.
If I were to analyse the high-fashion success of this most disreputable of fabrics, I’d put it down to the shine. The best-dressed women I know are adept at mixing up textures: they pair fluffy with smooth or buttery with crisp. If this sounds like the script for a Marks & Spencer food ad, I can only say that it’s the same principle: a variety of textures is pleasing whether we experience it with our eyes or our palate, and this is one of the great tricks of dressing well. Vinyl, with its high shine and intensity of colour, is begging to be paired with delicate silk, voluminous mohair or matt cotton. In this context — a statement fabric dialled down by its companions — it’s not trashy at all. It’s quite fabulous.
My gateway drug — its temptation too hard to resist — was a below-the-knee A-line skirt by the online brand Kitri (£79, kitristudio.com). It’s relatively modest — although you can unzip it from the bottom if you want to show a bit more leg — yet pleasingly eye-catching. It’s hard to ignore somebody in shiny clothing. (And McQ Alexander McQueen has an even shinier, more S&M version for the bold, £275, net-a-porter.com.) My skirt attracts compliments, but I also have to warn you that these fabrics provide their own soundtrack. Prepare for rustling, squeaking and crackling as you move through your day and avoid plastic chairs at all costs.
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Kitri is also selling trousers in the same fabric: the Eleonora, fitted around the waist and bum with a straight leg (£75, kitristudio.com), while Mango’s blue version (£35.99, mango.com) has a gathered paper-bag waist. With these I’d suggest dressing them up rather than down; heels and a tucked-in silk blouse would do nicely for a night out.
An important note: don’t dismiss the idea of a shiny miniskirt. Although it brings together two elements that some might call tarty, together they are greater than the sum of their parts. Probably best worn with tights, a shortish vinyl skirt is neat, chic and less attention-grabbing than trousers in the same fabric (put it down to the smaller surface area). Try the olive-green patent-leather version at & Other Stories (£155, stories.com) or Mango’s midnight blue vinyl one (£29.99, mango.com) with a black poloneck and flats.
Outerwear is always going to be the easiest way to wear patent, so for a purchase you can be in love with long-term, look for a coat. Amazon’s fashion brand, Find, has a knee-length, blood-red patent trench (£40.04, amazon.co.uk). In the Shrimps sale (shrimps.co.uk) you can find the straight-cut navy Sinclair coat with a green collar, reduced from £495 to £198 — the trim is faux fur, the coat polyurethane. Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like “cashmere”, does it? Looks great nevertheless.
If you want to reassure yourself that you’re going the high-class route to high-shine, however, there’s some logic in throwing money at this trend — it’s less likely to look cheap. Burberry’s black coated-cotton Eastheath trench has all the classic details you would expect from the brand (£1,495) — but I particularly like Ellery’s toffee-hued, loose-cut coat (£2,275, both net-a-porter.com). Rag & Bone’s patent-leather straight-legged trousers (£950, net-a-porter.com) are flatteringly cropped in length if not in price and would be great with a soft knit and ankle boots. Diane von Furstenberg’s navy pencil skirt would stylishly dress up a woolly jumper (reduced from £748 to £374, matchesfashion.com).
If you still firmly believe that vinyl is best kept for your music collection and not your wardrobe, let me hit you with one final word of common sense. We’re likely to face three more months of soul-destroying drizzle before the weather improves. Lovely as cashmere and silk may be, they are horribly absorbent.
