After spending every single day of the last six months in my favorite oversized Raey sweatshirt and maternity leggings, the latter of which I was ready to light on fire, I was going out. I had given birth to my first child, after being pregnant in what has felt like an eternal lockdown in London, and restrictions had finally lifted.
And so, in preparation for a rooftop drink with a friend, in the spirit of ‘the new roaring 20s that I’ve been hearing about, I had put on a tiered silk minidress, a pair of PVC sandals, and planned to take a fringed envelope clutch. I hoped to feel like my old self, but in reality, the only thing that looked old, was the look. It was too done. It was too staunchly pre-pandemic. It was missing something.
I only really understood why my re-emergence look felt jarring once I saw the adjacent look in my Instagram feed courtesy of @a_typelist. A masterclass in indoor-outdoor styling, this pairing of baggy sweatpants with high-heeled sandals really hits the zeitgeist on the head. It felt so current, because we’ve been so domesticated, that a look needs a touch of indoor to be relevant. And it goes beyond influencers. I’ve seen endless marketing campaigns around “house dresses” pushing the idea of dresses that feel homely enough for the couch yet nice enough should you run into someone on that daily walk. The aesthetic also seemed to win the elusive heart of Hedi Slimane, underpinning both Celine SS21 and FW21.
Indoor-outdoor styling at its best, via Instagram’s @a_typelist
Celine Spring/Summer 2021 epitomizes indoor-outdoor styling. (Photo: vogue.com)
Fashion has always been about contrasts - we love paradoxical juxtaposition. Leather and lace. High-end with low. Positive and negative space (think of Christopher Esber, Aje and Cult Gaia’s dramatic cutouts on long-hemmed SS21 dresses.) And now, indoor-outdoor, a vibe that’s been referenced in the past with pajama pieces as daywear, has really come into fruition.
But why? Is it simply that we’ve become too slovenly to make an effort? I don’t think so. Like many, as a lifelong lover of the pre-game, I love getting ready. We’re not lazy, we’ve just wholly leaned into a domiciliary life. A focus on the indoor life stems from way beyond fashion. Of course, after a year at home, indoor pieces are deeply embroiled in our repertoires: sweatpants are the new leather leggings, slides are the new stilettos, and so on. But it’s more than that. As of March 2020, we’ve been baking, renovating, stocking up on house essentials, establishing cozy workspaces, spending way too much time with our significant others, or, forming support bubbles and spending more time with those few folks as opposed to our former steady rotation of loose contacts. Our very psyches have now shifted to embrace a different set of values: introspection, creativity, family, and deeper connections. While we complained about the monotony, we were all to relieved to be momentarily liberated from the pressure of watching the clock in order to make it somewhere. This prolonged change in behaviors caused a change in our collective conscious, which ultimately, is what has changed fashion.
That evening, I kept the dress, but swapped the heels for bejewelled slippers and felt much more post-pandemic appropriate. A few months from now, I can only hope that the pandemic loosens its grip on us, and we can re-emerge into society for good. With that, we can hopefully leave the couchwear on the couch, and this trend can be just that.
In the world of post-pandemic dressing, one word has taken social media by storm: cheugy (pronounced: chew-gee). In the worlds of fashion and lifestyle, cheugy describes a look, a thing or a person that’s considered out of date.