Fashion’s latest heroine is artfully dishevelled. In an age of unrelenting perfection, embracing your messy side requires guts …
Collage: 1. Kate Moss for Saint Laurent AW25. 2. Mary-Kate Olsen. 3. Sienna Miller. 4. Alexa Chung for Chloé AW25. 5. Fashion designer Nili Lotan. 6. Artist Lola Young whose hit single “Messy” went to number one in the charts this year.
My friend sends me a meme: an infographic of twelve medieval cats. Which one are you today?, it poses. In 2025, my dream wardrobe could be charted on a similar scale of artfully messy women. These run the gamut from Kate Moss on a Formentera beach, scuffed Hermès Kelly slung into the crook of her arm, to Mary-Kate Olsen (pre-The Row sleekness) in a voluminous knit, fag in hand and hair scraped into a topknot. If this were a Venn diagram, the sweet spot would be the incandescent Jane Birkin, who was so laissez-faire that a nail clippers dangled from her prototype Birkin, which recently fetched a record-breaking $10m at a Sotheby’s auction.
For AW25, runway styling leaned into the frazzled woman (I know her!). Perhaps she has issues with timekeeping, is perennially disorganised, doesn’t own an ironing board. At Miu Miu, models were in a state of déshabillé, cardigans slipping off their shoulders to reveal a flash of bra strap. It helped that high priestess of the look Alexa Chung modelled a quintessential messy girl uniform at Chloé. Think, a slip dress with an Afghan coat, a Paddington bag (also loved by Courtney Love) and ankle-strap flats that looked like they’d been drafted in after her heels began to pinch. At Khaite, the leather trenches, knee-high boots and cable-knits were beautiful, but the layering had a distinct got-dressed-in-thedark energy. I, for one, welcome this offbeat mood. After all, quiet chaos is far more interesting than quiet luxury.
Such an organic approach to dressing will comfort those who routinely make it halfway down the road and realise they made the wrong accessory choice. Twisting Gabrielle Chanel’s advice to remove one thing before you leave the house – rather messing up one thing – the presence of one item that’s ‘off’ is intentional. The season’s woman invites us to go rogue: embrace high-low by mixing new with worn-in vintage, choose the ‘wrong’ shoe, eschew sanitised ‘timeless’ labels for something garish, or left of field, simply because it’s fabulous.
1. Chloë Sevigny. 2. Kate Moss. 3. Jane Birkin. 4. Alexa Chung and Pixie Geldof.
It feels nostalgic to be messy. It harks back to the Tumblr days where being artfully dishevelled was a badge of honour. Derelict, the hipsters would call it. This was a time, pre-social media, where It girls distracted from their eye bags with a cheeky red lip and balanced designer totes alongside chipped nail varnish (and a hangover). Autumn’s unkempt aesthetic fascinates because it stretches beyond the trendsphere. It’s an olive branch to the messy woman in all of us. After all, she needs nurturing. She’s been stifled by years of ‘always on’ culture, pummelled by the proliferation of the selfie, bankrupted by overpriced athleisure. Embracing our inner helterskelter is a rebellion against vanilla cashmere, glossy waves, lip filler, deep-plane facelifts and, the most offensive of all nouns, glam. (See the attendees of the Sánchez-Bezos wedding earlier this year). Could a trend really be a tipping point for a cultural reset? As someone who is hopeless at coiffed mermaid waves, I hope so. If 2025 is the year more women than ever dissolve filler, it’s the year I eschew a €450 multi-styler to do DIY plaits à la my childhood pop crush Whigfield.
Normalise wrinkled clothes, errant hairs, or (my old friend) a flash of lipstick on your teeth.
Speaking of hair, the look is au naturel. There is zero sign of artificial intervention, no telltale tongs marks. As Olivia Wayman (@oliviasshoppingdiary) – a fashion curator and bona-fide Olsen twin obsessive – believes, wild, surfer hair is the fashion girl’s secret weapon when styling a sleek look. “Your hair is the most affordable yet luxurious accessory you own. Use it wisely to create an interesting contrast,” she says. Christina Grasso (@thepouf) rejects blow-dries and craves “long, witchy waves that look lived in, slept on and as if they’ve rolled in the hay for a second or two”.
Of course, what’s alluring about this woman is that she has a jangle of unattainability. In reality, looking effortless actually requires quite a lot of conditioning. A white T-shirt, worn with jeans and bedhead hair, requires the tee to be of a certain quality, the hair to be textured but notably soft. That being said, there’s a quiet confidence that buttresses the undone. Marisa Meltzer, the author of It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin (Simon & Schuster), believes the key to Birkin’s much-emulated style was how comfortable she seemed. “She always looked so in her own skin,” she said on The Run-Through With Vogue podcast, citing a state dinner at Quai d’Orsay in 1992. Princess Diana was classic in a formal black dress while Birkin rocked up in a man’s tuxedo, louche hair, her XL bag overspilling. It shouldn’t be novel – but it is. In an era of unrelenting perfection, being openly messy – hell, being slightly off-kilter – requires balls. It’s not as simple as letting it all hang out, but surely there’s a happy medium. “Especially at a time when people are interested in every micro-trend, being an influencer, TikToks on how to find your personal style … The key to why Birkin looked so good is not overthinking it – she just didn’t seem to. I wish there was more of that,” Meltzer says. @ohegartysarah
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