From office dressing to the latest Dior and Chanel runways, white has re-emerged as fashion’s quiet power move.
It was only when I arrived in the office for the first time after the festive break, and found my all-white ensemble being commented upon by everyone who saw me, that I took stock of why that was what I had put on that morning. I thought about it even more when I met another fashion professional later in the day, also in head-to-toe achromatics. How we laughed. But also felt rather pleased with ourselves.
My undyed Balla crewneck in five-gauge lambswool from the wonderful Scottish knitwear operation & Daughter (£395 / approx. $530, anddaughter.com); my ancient cream wool Joseph trousers with the outsize covered buttons that look more like Milkybar buttons; my remarkably still-snowy-looking ankle boots from another exceptional small British label, Dear Frances; my box-fresh small white Prada Arqué bag (£2,150 / approx. $2,889, prada.com) … Together, they added up to, for me, a cross between a clean slate, a pep talk and – if I am honest – a not-so-humble brag. That’s the power of clothes, right there.
On a day when it felt like a struggle to get up on time, never mind to go anywhere or do anything, and to look fabulous while doing so, what my garb successfully communicated was that kind of togetherness, effortlessness even, that makes the wearer look – and there is no other way to put this – superior.
I think that’s largely because an outfit of white and/or cream betokens a life that circumvents the quotidian; a life in which everything from commercial flights to coffee stains just don’t (praise be) penetrate. Yet there may well be something more atavistic to it, something more profound. White is, after all, the (non) colour worn by a pretty remarkable and age-old line up, from brides to angels, nurses to the Pope. And then there are the famous individual white-wearers, including, and in no particular order, Gandhi, Mark Twain, and Elvis.
The two most anticipated ready to wear collections in years, the debuts for spring/summer 26 of Jonathan Anderson and Matthieu Blazy at Dior and Chanel respectively, were full of white, the color of new beginnings.
Anderson, formerly of Loewe, opened and closed his catwalk show in October with two white dresses, and, in the mix of the 72 looks in between, offered up everything from capes to culottes in paler than pale hues. The Northern Irish designer’s first in-store offerings have begun hitting the rails this month. What better way to see out January – and see it off, too, metaphorically speaking – than in his white cable knit cardigan with its speckling of tiny blooms and his all-white jeans (£2,800 / approx. $3,762 and £1,100 / approx. $1,478 respectively, dior.com). These are clothes that are spring incarnate.
Ditto the lily-of-the-valley-strewn white silk jersey tee and matching skirt (£1,050 / approx. $1,410 and £2,150 / appprox. $2,889 respectively). And an on-point flourish to all of the above would be the white iteration of Anderson’s new Bow arm candy that comes embroidered with white clovers (£3,700 / approx $4,971).
At the heart of Blazy’s vision for Chanel was a not-remotely-plain white shirt, conceived in conjunction with the Parisian specialists Charvet, which has been selling its crisp cotton wares on Place Vendôme since 1838. Coco Chanel’s great – possibly greatest – love, Arthur “Boy” Capel, with whom she spent nine years until his death from a car accident in 1919, only wore shirts from Charvet.
Capel, an English-polo-player-cum-businessman-cum-man-about-town, didn’t just finance Coco’s first shops – not to mention, less laudably, marry someone else when they were supposedly together – he also served as something of a muse. So much of what fuelled the designer’s remaking of women’s fashion was co-opted from men’s wardrobes and, to be more precise, in the early years at least, Capel’s.
Blazy, who is French-Belgian, and previously headed up Bottega Veneta, designed his white Charvet shirt oversized and bib-fronted, and paired it with a comparatively straightforward – yet still delicious – black fishtail skirt that swooped up at the front to reveal switcheroo bi-colour pumps, the toe white, the rest of the shoe black. It is available, like the rest of his line up, from March.
This is how women want to look in 2026. Or how I do, anyway. Nonchalant yet polished and above all — that word again — effortless. It’s a triumvirate that was delivered too by the drapey white co-ords, the black-trimmed white suits, the white satin tees, and a sublime fringe-hemmed white textured dress that somehow managed to appear – and this is something that Blazy is notably good at – both minimalist and maximalist at one and the same time.
That’s another part of the appeal of white at the moment, I think. There’s an apparently competing desire in luxury for simplicity and specialness. How do the two co-exist? White is one way to make it happen. It’s a way of alchemizing those pared back staples that hang on the rails of even the most expensive women’s wardrobes in the world these days – the blazers, slacks, shirts, and tees – into something that stands apart in the current sea of black, camel, and khaki. White is fresh; spotless; the opposite of tired or dull. Just a white bag or pair of shoes can be similarly transformative when worn with darker shades.
White is also both an erasure and a statement at one, and thus serves as an apposite conductor for the AC/DC electrics of the contemporary aesthetic. It signals clarity and confidence, too, in this complicated and at times overpowering world of ours. It’s perfect for right now.
