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Twinning Outfits Not a Fashion Faux Pas in Milan

Logos are on display outside the Gucci show at Milan Fashion Week. Marco BERTORELLO / AFP
Logos are on display outside the Gucci show at Milan Fashion Week. Marco BERTORELLO / AFP
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Twinning Outfits Not a Fashion Faux Pas in Milan

Logos are on display outside the Gucci show at Milan Fashion Week. Marco BERTORELLO / AFP
Logos are on display outside the Gucci show at Milan Fashion Week. Marco BERTORELLO / AFP

You enter a room and - gasp! - someone across from you is wearing the same outfit.
Relax, it happens. It's Milan Fashion Week and guests have sported the same outfits in runway shows running from Wednesday to Sunday, AFP said.
More than 50 catwalk shows on the women's Fall/Winter 2024-2025 calendar from Diesel and Dolce & Gabbana to Gucci and Versace draw guests from all over the world but many of them end up looking near identical.
At Fendi on the opening day, two influencers from Dubai stood toe-to-toe chatting and wearing the exact same animal print lace-up boots.
Meanwhile, the color-block print shirt adorned with the Fendi logo that 29-year-old Fatma Husam sported was the one chosen by multiple other women.
Did that bother her?
"It's completely normal," Husam said. "Because after all, how many clothes do these brands make anyway?"
Her friend, Deema Alasadi, 35, agreed.
"At a party I would be a bit busted, but at Fashion Week it's totally normal."
Japanese musicians Aya and Ami, known collectively as Amiaya, took it to the next level as only twins can with matching cherry red bob hairstyles and identical high black Fendi boots with gold heels.
Later Wednesday at Roberto Cavalli, a blonde woman in a long flowy gown printed with lemons from designer Fausto Puglisi's 2024 Resort collection smiled coyly for the cameras.
Nearby, another guest pouted and posed in a bodysuit sewn of cheetah fabric -- a mainstay of the brand -- that left little to the imagination.
But those are not the only lemons and animal prints in the room.
'Herd instinct'
Luxury brands personally dress the A-list celebrities who attend their fashion shows in up-to-the-minute looks -- such as the all-black-clad Uma Thurman and Sharon Stone at Tom Ford Thursday night -- making sure not to duplicate looks in the front rows.
But influencers -- who are sometimes sent the most coveted "it" items by the labels -- and other guests are left to rummage through their own closets, making duplications from past seasons inevitable.
But the devil is in the details, said Husam at the Fendi show.
"Everyone may be wearing the same pieces, but styling them differently," she said.
Copycat looks are most obvious when it comes to brands with in-your-face logos, such as Gucci and Versace, but harder to detect with those taking a subtler approach, such as Prada and Armani.
It is common among fashion editors who attend shows, said Godfrey Deeny, global editor-in-chief of FashionNetwork.com.
"If you're an editor you're always looking for the new, but you also have a herd instinct that you want everyone to know you know what the new thing is," he said.
"So you c
Many in the industry take comfort, he said, in knowing that "when you go, you'll all be wearing the same absurd sneaker."
Of course when it comes to the brand's employees, security guards and ushers at fashion shows, it is standard to wear the same thing: black.

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Fashion

80-year-old LL Bean Staple Finds New Audience as Trendy Bag

Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
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80-year-old LL Bean Staple Finds New Audience as Trendy Bag

Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

L.L. Bean created it 80 years ago to haul heavy blocks of ice. Now it's a must-have summer fashion accessory, The Associated Press reported.

The simple, sturdy canvas bag called the Boat and Tote is having an extended moment 80 years after its introduction, thanks to a social media trend in which they're monogrammed with ironic or flashy phrases.

New Yorker Gracie Wiener helped get it started by ordering her humble bags from L.L. Bean monogrammed with “Psycho” and then “Prada,” the pricey Italian luxury brand, instead of just her name or initials, and posting about them on Instagram. Then others began showcasing their own unique bags on TikTok.

Soon, it wasn’t enough to have a bag monogrammed with “Schlepper,” “HOT MESS,” “slayyyy” or “cool mom.” Customers began testing the limits of the human censors in L.L. Bean’s monogram department, which bans profanity “or other objectionable words or phrases,” with more provocative wording like “Bite me,” “Dum Blonde” and “Ambitchous.”

Social media fueled the surge, just as it did for Stanley’s tumblers and Trader Joe’s $2.99 canvas bags, which were once selling on eBay for $200, said Beth Goldstein, an analyst at Circana, which tracks consumer spending and trends.
The tote’s revival came at a time when price-conscious consumers were forgoing expensive handbags, sales of which have weakened, and L.L. Bean’s bag fit the bill as a functional item that’s trendy precisely because it’s not trendy, she said. L.L. Bean's regular bags top out at about $55, though some fancier versions cost upward of $100.
“There’s a trend toward the utilitarian, the simple things and more accessible price points,” she said, and the customization added to the appeal: “Status items don’t have to be designer price points.”

L.L. Bean’s tote was first advertised in a catalog as Bean’s Ice Carrier in 1944 during World War II, when ice chests were common. Then they disappeared before being reintroduced in 1965 as the Boat and Tote.

These days, they’re still made in Maine and are still capable of hauling 500 pounds of ice, but they are far more likely to carry laptops, headphones, groceries, books, beach gear, travel essentials and other common items.

Those snarky, pop-oriented phrases transformed them into a sassy essential and helped them spread beyond Maine, Massachusetts’ Cape Cod and other New England enclaves to places like Los Angeles and New York City, where fashionistas like Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Jessica Parker are toting them — but not necessarily brandished with ironic phrases.

“It’s just one of those things that makes people smile and makes people laugh, and it’s unexpected,” said Wiener, who got it all started with her @ironicboatandtote Instagram page, which she started as a fun side hustle from her job as social media manager for Air Mail, a digital publication launched by former Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter.

The folks at L.L. Bean were both stunned and pleased by the continuing growth. For the past two years, the Boat and Tote has been L.L. Bean’s No. 1 contributor to luring in new customers, and sales grew 64% from fiscal years 2021 to 2023, spokesperson Amanda Hannah said.

The surge in popularity is reminiscent of L.L. Bean’s traditional hunting shoe, the iconic staple for trudging through rain and muck, which enjoyed its own moment a few years back, driven by college students.