It’s no surprise that 2022 was a big year for fashion. The style world is fully, frivolously back after the pandemic years. The economy is a different story, but that’s why we have the lipstick index: the theory that sales of affordable luxuries rise in economic downturns. So, yes, the cost of living crisis might be raging, but so are the parties, the red carpet looks, and the front rows.
In fact, so much has happened it’s hard to believe that it all took place in the same year. It seems almost laughable that the same year that gave us a slew of Rihanna pregnancy outfits also gifted us with the Don’t Worry Darling drama, and accompanying red carpet looks of Harry Styles and Florence Pugh. And then, less than a month after that, we saw Bella Hadid sprayed into a dress, and Heidi Klum writhing about as a worm.
In case some of it slipped your mind, here are the biggest viral fashion moments from 2022.
Rihanna serves maternity look after maternity look
A year of fashion moments was kicked off in truly Herculean style with Rihanna, on January 31. Yes, the pink quilted AW96 Chanel coat that sent ripples around the world, peeled open to reveal the singer’s baby bump, with Carhartt-clad dad A$AP Rocky on hand.
What we didn’t know then was that this was just the start. The next four months, leading up to the eventual birth on May 13, saw a glut of ground-breaking pregnancy outfits. Sheer dresses on the Dior front row, lace crop tops at Gucci shows, red catsuits on the cover of US Vogue et cetera, et cetera.
Nicole Kidman wears the Miu Miu mini
Ah, the ubiquitous Miu Miu mini skirt. Truly the garment of 2022, this little number was worn by just about everyone and anyone over the course of the past year. First, it cropped up in editorial after editorial (Zendaya for Interview magazine, Paloma Elsesser for i-D), then it made it onto the red carpet (Sydney Sweeney, MTV Movie Awards) and into the selfies of the coolest of the Gen Z style set (male model Vin Ho, Emma Corrin and Tommy Dorfman).
But Nicole Kidman was, as Gen Z say, truly the best to do it. The 55-year-old actress posed for Vanity Fair in an ab-baring, low-rise duo of the mini skirt back in February, sending the internet into a tailspin and demand for gym memberships into overdrive.
Julia Fox at the Oscars
It has most certainly been the Year of the Fox. It started with the infamously extravagant courtship with a rapper-who-shall-not-be-named in January. Restaurant photoshoots, apartments filled with clothes - and those were just the first two dates. The rapper and Uncuh Jahmz actress parted ways on Valentine’s Day, and so the rest of the year panned out as a tale of two. Her ex slowly disintegrated into a social media-documented breakdown like no other, while she rose and rose on the fashion scene.
A favourite? The Oscars afterparty dress. Leather fist neckline, human hair clutch, self-drawn swan lake eyes (Say it with me now: “I actually did them myself.”) Long may she reign.
The first look at Margot Robbie as Barbie
On June 27, as we were fast advancing to summer’s peak, in came the squint-inducing, fluorescent outfits of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Snapped filming exterior shots in LA for Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie film, Robbie dazzled in an 80s squiggle swimsuit and hot pink cycling shorts, with Gosling papped in a matching co-ord, both sporting highlighter yellow visors and roller blades. Combine this with Valentino’s PP Pink collection which opened with 40 head-to-toe pink looks in March, and Barbiecore hysteria ensued. Given the film doesn’t open in theatres until next summer, it seems as though Barbiecore could (God willing) stick around well into 2023.
Kim K breaks the internet (again), amongst other things
The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted its annual Costume Institute Gala on the first Monday in May with the theme of “Gilded Glamour,” as part of the second installment of its “In America” series. As per usual, the guests’ arrival created a perfect storm of carefully selected on-theme and laughably off-theme looks, starting with hosts Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Anna Wintour and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and ending with a very late Kim Kardashian, arm in arm with her now ex-boyfriend, Pete Davidson.
Kim’s look eclipsed all others, as she revealed that she was wearing Marilyn Monroe’s iconic “Happy Birthday Mr President” dress, which the actress originally wore while singing to John F. Kennedy in 1962. Sadly for Kim, this wasn’t the main takeaway from the outfit: it was quickly revealed that Kim’s famous posterior could not fit in the dress, so she had to lose weight to squeeze in - but then damaged it anyway.
Kate Middleton gets camp in the Caribbean
I just love it when the Royals do something interesting, don’t you? I mean sartorially, not like, starting another Netflix series (please, I can’t take it). Plus, I’ve seen enough tartan, Alexander McQueen coats and beige dresses on the women of this Royal Family to send me into a lifelong stupor, so when someone steps out in a little colour, it’s nice. Kate Middleton did just this during her royal trip to the Caribbean back in March, where she wore an uncharacteristically campy pink sequined gown by The Vampire’s Wife to a special reception in Belize.
The gown was a hit, as indeed were many of her other more ambitious outfits on the trip, but unfortunately those fuschia sequins still weren’t enough to distract from the bad optics of the tour in general (Remember the images of Kate and Will reaching through wire fences, shaking hands with Jamaican children? Yep). One step forward…
Anne Hathaway goes Devil Wears Prada, again
Anne Hathaway? In a Devil Wears Prada throwback? Groundbreaking. No, really, it was groundbreaking. The Oscar-winning actress has branched out a lot with her looks this year, from full Valentino PP Pink get ups at fashion week, to rainbow Christopher John Rogers jumpsuits for talk shows, to cute little cone bra minidresses at Cannes, courtesy of Gucci.
Despite serving up vibrance and variation all throughout 2022, we are nostalgic beasts at heart, and so the Anne fashion moment to beat them all was her little nod to Andy Sachs on the FROW at NYFW. She wore a dark brown crocodile-style leather coat, huge sunglasses (a hint of Anne amongst the Andy) and black turtleneck, reminiscent of her Devil Wears Prada counterpart’s final film look. What makes it even better: She wore it while sat on the front row at Michael Kors next to the one and only, Anna Wintour. Aka the inspiration for fictional “Runway” boss Miranda Priestley.
Timothee Chalamet in his Haider Ackermann
This little boy knows how to stunt, I’ll say that. In September, Timothee Chalamet treated us to another slice of red carpet realness when he rocked up to the Venice Film Festival premiere of Bones and All in a Haider Ackermann crimson silk vest, which people quickly realised was missing its back. How embarrassing for him! But no, like everything this showstopper turned heartstopper does, it was very much intentional and very much appreciated by 18-year-old boys and girls across the world. This is solidly the best look of his Bones and All press tour, but he did whip out some other good ones too, and all very on theme. Blood red silk, bare skin, crisp white suits with diamante bone chokers - the lot. Look, the boy came to eat, and he ate.
Florence Pugh turns up late with an Aperol Spritz
There’s a lot to be said about Flo Pugh’s big year in fashion, but her Don’t Worry Darling press tour looks have to be worth an honourable mention. Granted, she did so little press for the film (eyes emoji) that there were actually only like… two, but boy, when she turned up did she turn up. For the premiere at Venice Film Festival (this festival was big for fashion moments, clearly), Pugh sent the red carpet wild with her humungous black tulle gown, complete with massive puff sleeves and tiny silver stars embroidered throughout.
But it was earlier in the day when she taught everyone the real meaning of a starlet: arriving late to her hotel in Venice, missing the press conference for her own film, swanning about with an Aperol Spritz, all while wearing a violet Valentino two-piece. And sunglasses. Perfect. No notes.
Bella Hadid gets a dress spray-painted on
Good luck to anyone who was trying to have “the moment” of Fashion Week this autumn because no matter what anyone did, all everyone could talk about was the moment that Coperni sprayed a dress onto Bella Hadid. So much so, that according to WWD the media impact of the performance has been valued at $26.3 million dollars. Better than any old ad campaign, eh?
The media sensation was a result of the work of Manel Torres, inventor of the spray-on fabric Fabrican, who was one of the two individuals tasked with spraying down Bella Hadid’s naked (save for nude underwear) body on the catwalk to close Coperni’s show. Then appeared Charlotte Raymond, the brand’s head of design, who turned the dress from silly string to chic by gently manipulating the shoulders and cutting in a thigh-high slit. Voila, viral.
Heidi Klum dresses as a worm
If spray paint dresses started the month of October, worms ended it. Heidi Klum’s annual Halloween bash brought us classic costumes such as The Joker, Catwoman, Cleopatra, and… a gigantic worm, which was, of course, worn by Klum herself. To be fair, what did you expect from Heidi Klum? Over the past few years, she has dressed as an elderly woman, Fiona from Shrek, and a skinless human body. She is most certainly not aiming for sexiness in her Halloween looks - well, aside from later in the evening when she stripped off the worm costume to reveal a bedazzled nude bodysuit beneath. (But, crucially, left the worm face on.)
Jodie Turner-Smith hosts the Fashion Awards
It would be sacrilege to conclude this look without mention of 2022’s red carpet heavyweight, Jodie Turner-Smith. The actress finally got recognition for her fashion chops this year in its most official form: she was asked to host the British Fashion Awards, held earlier this month. Responding in kind, Turner-Smith presented the event in not one but multiple amazing, outlandish looks. Her first look - a lime green, flowing Grecian Gucci gown - would have been enough on its own, but that’s just not Jodie Turner-Smith. We’re manifesting this energy for 2023, right gang?
