One thing I have been noticing more and more is that the world seems to have turned very neutral.
Not in terms of politics, but in terms of fashion and style.
Bland and boring beige, cream, grey and camel and a touch of black have taken over as the dominant colour palette for everything from evening wear to track suits and interiors.
It also crosses genders and age groups, starting from newborn babies and working its way up.
In our enthusiasm to embrace the gender neutral, we seem to have just gone neutral, opting for calm, non-offensive shades that conveniently all work together.
I blame the influencers, as it’s a sort of influencer uniform that looks vaguely LA-expensive if you put a filter over it: camel coats, cream pants, beige sweaters , subtle gold jewellery.
The beige/pale khaki tones are also especially prevalent in athleisure pieces like hoodies, parkas and soft pants and sneakers.
It’s become so ubiquitous, this asexual, unobtrusive uniform, that from airports to restaurants to Sunday markets it looks like everybody is starring in a sepia-tinged episode of Lost in Space.
I was trying to pinpoint where it came from, and I think, once again, I have to blame the Kardashians, because Kanye reworked Kim’s dubious wardrobe after they got together and she and he were constantly photographed in relentlessly neutral shades, a styling hack which then spread to her pesky family.
Colour me bored
At the very pointy end of the fashion spectrum there are lots of Mad Hatter designers and club kids going nuts with colour and pattern, but the mainstream has taken up low key, boring neutrals with a vengeance. It’s the same with cars.
I walked up a Paddington street lined with parked vehicles, and there wasn’t a single car that wasn’t black, silver, white or grey.
I was thrilled when my son came home with his newly purchased secondhand Holden that is a particularly ghastly shade of bright blue because at least he’ll be able to find it if he parks it anywhere between Sydney’s eastern suburbs and the airport.
The ‘blandification’ of fashion and interiors is most definitely a thing.
Even the logos of famous fashion houses have been starting to look the same over the past few years, with brands ditching their original and sometimes quirky logos ,and using samey bold type and sans-serif fonts in a quest to look modern.
Granted the typefaces are more readable, and in a digital age, they are able to be spread over a variety of items and devices, but often a brand’s DNA and history is inevitably caught up with its logo.
Interestingly, Burberry has recently returned to the use of its original logo from 1901, a gorgeous illustration of a knight on a horse.
It seems to me that this new, neutral uniform is a very much what the movies and TV series of the 1960s predicted we would all be wearing in the future; utilitarian clothing built for comfort, in soothing hues.
A uniform of calm, helping us to cope with an increasingly chaotic and hostile environment. And possibly, aliens.
