UNRAVELLING THE OBNOXIOUS LAYERING TREND

What do Joey Tribbiani, Balenciaga, Mary Kate Olsen and Miu Miu all have in common? They’re all proponents of the same fashion rule: layering the hell out of your clothes. Enter: the obnoxious layering trend, where too much is never enough.

Let’s take a step back. What actually is layering? It’s simple really: it’s where you layer one item of clothing over another. To the untrained eye, this might not seem like a big deal. But to the sartorial experts among us, layering can be the difference between a good outfit and a great outfit. It’s a core value of every stylist, a way to make a piece of clothing feel new and gives infinite possibilities to your wardrobe. And come winter when it is absolutely freezing, it’s a necessity. Especially come January 2024…

As for obnoxious layering? It’s Joey wearing all the coats in Friends. It’s wearing more clothes than seems strictly reasonable (or necessary), making like a Michelin Man and taking things almost – almost – too far. While it’s been kicking about in the wardrobe of trends since ’96, this year, it’s taken on a life of its own. Joey Tribbiani may be the godfather of the trend, but the reason it’s become so popular this year is thanks – unsurprisingly – to Miuccia Prada.

Miu Miu’s AW23 show featured a series of looks that ranged from It girl chaos to librarian chic and all the way over to Frazzled English Woman (more on this later). Hair was messy, pants were on show, hosiery was peeking out of skirts. And clothing was layered to the max.

Take this look worn by Nina Pronk. It features a jacket over a jacket over a jumper over a top. On the bottom? A completely sheer skirt that’s been layered over not one, but two pairs of tights. And somehow, under three layers of fabric, the knickers at the very bottom are still visible. It’s like a never-ending pass the parcel of chicness that proves you can wear everything and nothing at the same time. Or – as the writer Laura Reilly dubbed it in The Cut – ‘a lasagne of Miu Miu’. And it hits. There’s a subtle sexiness to the piled-up layers where the assignment appears to be wear as many clothes as possible. Mrs Prada agrees. As she told Vogue when describing the collection: “There’s some excitement and sexiness there.”

At their SS24 show, it was a similar story. Clumsy coats were thrown over sloppy shirts, seemingly endless vortexes of collars peeped out under battered leather overcoats. The looks remained top-heavy, with models forgoing their trousers in favour of five tops at a time. The looks were paired with bursting-at-the-seams bowler bags, that were probably stuffed with more layers to put on, should the need for a hundredth coat appear. It was one small step for Miuccia Prada, one big step for fashion kind. Every year, Miu Miu creates season-defining cult buys and endless It pieces. And right now, they’re advocating that you wear them all at the same time.

Over in the menswear department? It’s a trifle too. Of layers that is. Allow us to take you back to 2018, when Balenciaga were debuting their AW18 collection. Looks that echoed, well, Joey from Friends, stormed down the runway. Coats upon coats upon coats upon fleeces upon shirts upon hoodies. You get the picture. Evolving an OTT fashion faux-pas into high-fashion caviar, the many-layered looks were a watershed moment in fashion, proving, in an intrinsically Balenciaga way, that too much can never be enough.

Fast forward to AW23 and Givenchy are making similar moves at their runway show. In a collection that featured an all-out Grunge-naissance, Matthew M. Williams showed onion-like layered looks. Read: this look where a hoodie is layered over an endless cascade of shirts. From the menswear to womenswear, obnoxious layering was becoming big news.

Unsurprisingly, the trend has begun to influence and appear in pop culture. Enter: the Frazzled English Woman (we told you we’d come back to her). The term entered our cultural lexicon last year and counts icons like Bridget Jones, Iris from The Holiday and Kiera Knightly as its patrons. The Frazzled English Woman is defined by her chaos and her layers. Her hair is messy (á la Miu Miu), she has on a massive scarf, a scruffy coat, too many jumpers and, likely, a stain on her shirt. She’s Helena Bonham Carter carrying an overstuffed leather bag while wearing seven skirts. She’s surprisingly stylish and she just loves to wear too many clothes at a time.

And it’s not just the Frazzled English Woman. It’s also the goths. Or to be more specific, the ‘Whimsical Goths’. For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a soft, spiritual, witchy energy. Think Phoebe Buffay and Stevie Nicks. Or Florence and the Machine and FKA Twigs. It’s purple velvet skirts cascading out under silk blouses with a fringe coat thrown on the top and a paisley-printed head scarf. To date, the #whimsigoth has 246.6 million views on TikTok, playing into Gen Z’s obsession with all things witchy and wonderful, and fashion’s collective love of layering.

Welcome to the world of OTT layers. Just be careful on the tube…