Loud Luxury: Why ‘Saltburn chic’ is coming to a wardrobe near you soon

Mob-wife meets boho-aristo swagger – the shows at London Fashion Week signalled an end to the toned-down glamour of stealth wealth and a loud hello to bolshy bling messiness, says Olivia Petter. Big coats, capacious bags and Oxford shirts here we come...

Quiet luxury begone, London Fashion Week was all about loud messy glamour (iStock/Getty/AP/Amazon Prime)

Forget everything you thought you knew about fashion. For several seasons, talk of “quiet luxury” has been so central in the sartorial zeitgeist that, for a moment, we forgot there was any other way to dress. Our wardrobes were washed out with muted tones and caramel-coloured cashmere. Drowned by loose tailoring and pleated maxi skirts.

Well, if last weekend’s London Fashion Week is anything to go by, it’s finally time to usher in something a little louder. Introducing “Saltburn Chic”, a new aesthetic spearheaded by Emerald Fennel’s film sensation that follows middle-class Oliver Quick as he inveigles his way into the lives of the aristocratic Catton family.

A mash-up of The Talented Mr Ripley and Brideshead Revisited, Saltburn is set in late 2006 and boasts a nostalgic look combining all the best mid-Noughties fashion tropes – think Ugg boots, off-the-shoulder tie-dye, and American Apparel bodycon dresses – and giving them an elevated twist, the elevation being a great whopping inheritance.