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The New York nightclub Studio 54 closed its doors almost 40 years ago, but it continues to influence how we dress.
This time around it is not Cher’s sheer bodysuit but the fuzzy coats and the furry stoles worn by the likes of Jerry Hall and Bianca Jagger as well as the hopefuls who queued outside for hours pleading for permission to cross the club’s velvet ropes.
As the festive party season looms, the Studio 54 coat is back.
One of the most popular items from Marks & Spencer’s recent collaboration with the London label 16Arlington is a cropped, cream, long-haired jacket with giant lapels. At John Lewis, searches for brown faux fur coats are up 190% year on year. Secondhand fuzzy finds are also in demand, with searches for faux fur rising 257% over the past six months on the secondhand platform Depop.
Julia Hobbs, a senior contributing fashion features editor at British Vogue, calls it a “one and done coat”, saying it performs as the main element of a look. She likes to wear hers, a colossal shaggy version from McQueen featuring shoulders similar to the wingspan of an ostrich, with low-rise jeans or tights and micro shorts.
This is replicated in the new series of Netflix’s romcom series Nobody Wants This. Morgan (Justine Lupe), the younger sister of Joanne (Kristen Bell), captures the mood when she wears a toffee-coloured furry jacket and little else to a casual dinner at Joanne and her rabbi boyfriend Noah’s (Adam Brody) house. When Joanne questions her look, Morgan replies: “You told us to dress up. It’s fashion!”
The trend taps into what the American trend forecaster Sean Monahan, who previously coined the 2014 term normcore, is calling “boom boom”. Rooted in the glamour and excess of late-80s New York, boom boom evokes wads of cash, champagne, cigarettes, high hemlines, loose morals and, of course, fur.
Similar to then, the trend is set against the backdrop of a volatile economy. Boom boom is very much about dressing for the lifestyle you aspire to rather than the one you have to endure.
While real fur was omnipresent during Studio 54’s heyday, today’s versions are mostly made from shearling – a byproduct of the meat industry – or synthetic materials such as polyester. The trend is very much tongue in cheek opulence – as if the Cookie Monster has taken charge with overblown proportions and unexpected colours.
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The London designer Charlotte Simone was an early instigator of this trend. Her fluffy coats with poodle-like proportions have been worn by the pop stars Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa and due to demand are now only sold in limited drops. An upcoming release includes a pink and charcoal version akin to a giant pom-pom, alongside leopard- and tiger-print versions with exaggerated fuzzy frou-frou.
Charlotte Collins, the editor-in-chief of SheerLuxe magazine, compares the increase in Studio 54 coats to the lipstick effect. “If you can only buy one thing, you don’t want it to be a plain jumper or a pair of boring trousers, you want something dramatic.”
It is a sentiment echoed by Queralt Ferrer, the fashion director of John Lewis. It’s “an unexpected, fun element”, she says, without needing to buy a whole new outfit.
In the end, the fuzzy coat can act as a great mood lifter. “It doesn’t have to cost a fortune,” says Collins, “and it’s going to make you feel glam when everything else is pretty gloomy.”
