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PLUMP UP THE VOLUME

Perhaps the most divisive style statement of the 80s, the puffball hem is back – but this time, there’s a version to keep everyone happy, says Laura Craik

Edinburgh, some time in the 1980s, and a crowd has gathered in the Waverley Centre, a shopping mall on Princes Street whose greatest draw is the Spud U Like nestled in its food court. Not today, though. Today, the glitz and glamour of a jacket potato with cheese and chilli con carne (we were not yet nonchalant enough to call it ‘chilli’) is trumped by something far more exciting. Today, the food court has been cleared of tables and chairs to make space for a catwalk – a catwalk! – erected to celebrate the opening of Warehouse, the fashion chain co-founded by Jeff Banks, an actual TV presenter on an actual TV programme, The Clothes Show. Life truly didn’t get more exciting than this.

And that’s when I saw my first puffball skirt: in a fashion show in a food court in a shopping centre in Edinburgh. Suddenly, the ra-ra I was wearing felt all wrong. This was what the future looked like: not frilly but pouffy. Whichever twisted genius had decided to take every little girl’s favourite sleeve style and turn it into a skirt deserved all the awards.

Several decades and thousands of fashion shows later, I still feel admiration for whoever first thought of the puffball, a divisive garment that has enjoyed far more longevity than its harshest critics could possibly have anticipated. In the 80s, puffballs were as popular a look for evening as for day, worn with varying degrees of success by fans including Joan Collins, Sarah Ferguson, Brooke Shields, Princess Diana and Madonna. Paris Hilton and Sarah Jessica Parker wore them when they came round again in the early 2000s, while in 2016, they enjoyed another revival, courtesy of Louis Vuitton, as seen on Amal Clooney, Alicia Vikander and Elle Fanning.

Talk about the trend least likely to last. And yet last it has: right through to the present day. This season, the puffball is back with a bang, reworked in so many clever ways that even the most avowed slim-silhouette lover may be forced to reconsider her stance. At the spring/summer shows, the puffball (Americans call them ‘bubble skirts’) was not only one of the most popular new skirt shapes, but also – surprisingly – one of the

‘TALK ABOUT THE TREND LEAST LIKELY TO LAST – YET LAST IT HAS’

most persuasive, thanks to the sheer variety on show. The original 80s versions were most faithfully re-created by Marques’ Almeida, whose short, electric blue skirt is likely to find favour with Gen Z – as will the silver puffball minidress shown by 16Arlington (right).

So far, so great – if you have the youth and confidence of a teenager. What about those of us who prefer not to show our thighs, and have become both comfortable with, and accustomed to, the longer skirts that have prevailed through recent seasons? This is where the news is as good as it’s surprising. At no lesser a bastion of good taste than the New York-based label Khaite – every fashion editor’s go-to for chic, pared-back elegance since the designer Phoebe Philo abdicated from Céline – puffballs were longer, falling just above the knee. They were also denuded of volume, with narrow hems. Chanel and Dior also showed knee-length puffballs.

My favourite takes, however, were the longer iterations that fell either to mid-calf or skimmed the floor. These looked nothing like those I remember from the 80s, and had more in common with the maxi skirts

I’ve so enjoyed wearing in recent times. At Molly Goddard, a fulllength puffball in cream silk organza looked red-carpet ready (above right), but in a modern way, courtesy of the simple sleeveless cream top with which it had been paired. At another London-based label, Awake

Mode, a black, calf-length puffball looked like the sort of skirt you could wear to work with ease.

Part of the reason it looked so compelling was that it had been cleverly styled with a simple sweater and a trench coat – a timely reminder, when it comes to integrating a puffball skirt into your wardrobe, to always let it steal the show. Keep the rest of your outfit simple: a plain-coloured poloneck or fitted T-shirt will work better on your top half than anything voluminous. Puffballs also work surprisingly well with tailoring. No one mastered the clever juxtaposition of a playful skirt and a formal blazer more adeptly than the young Princess Diana, who in the 80s memorably teamed her striped puffball with a long-length white blazer. Three decades on, barrister Amal Clooney put her own spin on the puffball-as-formalwear look, wearing a striped one with loafers and a cream knit.

That Clooney’s striped puffball is a dead ringer for the one I first set my heart on in Warehouse all those years ago gives me a pang. After the fashion show had finished, everyone hot-footed it to the new store to take advantage of a special opening day discount. When I eventually spotted the puffball – stripy, flouffy, magnificent – I was devastated to see that its price was still far out of my reach. I never did buy one. Maybe this will be my year.

STYLE REPORT

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2023-03-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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