Cowboy boots, ice-cream and the occult: style trends for spring/summer 2018

Next time you’re tucking into an ice-cream cone, think of the sweet treat’s illustrious history. Charles II served it at the Garter Banquet in 1671, reserving the cold delight for the royal table alone. Before that, it was the fashionable dessert for wealthy Florentines, with Catherine de’ Medici bringing it to Versailles when she married King Henry of France in 1533. George Washington was also a fan. In the summer of 1790, he spent $200 on ice-cream – a lot, even by today’s standards – and apparently preferred the now-defunct oyster flavour.

 More recently, ice-cream has been enjoyed by ordinary folk, too. See the story (or urban myth) that Margaret Thatcher helped Mr Whippy with a new technique adding air to the formula to make the so-called soft-serve you find in the classic 99.

Why all the ice-cream facts? Because its fashion’s favourite treat this season. Not to eat, of course. In an industry in which the benefits of a plant-based diet are increasingly the alpha chat on the front row, it’s more about the look of ice-cream. The colours have been translated to blazers, dresses, trousers and more. Try a jacket the colour of strawberry ice-cream at Céline, pistachio co-ords at Acne, vanilla wafers on a suit at Chanel, blueberry swirls in a skirt suit at Versace or violet cream in layers of organza at Preen. It’s lip-smackingly good, and calorie-free.

Ice-cream is uncomplicated, sweet and speaks of summer, of wandering without knowing the time, of holidays and smiles. In a world in which opinion is often divided, and right and wrong bitterly contested, ice-cream feels like something to agree on. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream. Maybe that is why we want to dress like an ice-cream this season.

Source: theguardian