In her Burberry plaid, Lonsdale zip-ups, and slicked-back ponies, the model seems to have been taking style cues from GCSE students from the year 2002
In a recent interview with US Vogue, Bella Hadid outlined the various steps she has taken to find mental and physical balance. This includes ozone therapy, ultraviolet-light irradiation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, hormone replacement, and regular SPECT scans to increase blood flow to her frontal lobe cortex. What the model failed to mention, however, was that her wellbeing routine now involves chugging adaptogenic drinks from a giant Sports Direct mug – apparently.
This has, clearly, had some unexpected (but not unwelcome) side effects, among them Lonsdale zip-ups, scally trainers, matching Burberry sets, Specsavers frames, and tooth gems. On scouring the annals of Bella’s fan accounts, this has been ongoing since early February but made another appearance this week when the model took to the streets of New York in a pair of Nova Check sneakers, from which she had tugged some stark white socks. Having abandoned her stylist some time ago, it’s a sartorial shift which has garnered comparisons to Wembley’s Lady Sovereign, Daniella Westbrook, and inner-city GCSE students from in the year 2002.
Perhaps Bella’s feline gaze is not the result of a supposed fox eye procedure, either, but the slicked-back ponytail that she has appropriated from Kate Moss’ so-called Croydon Facelift. And while all of these aesthetics have been mired in classicism in the UK, given Bella’s distance to anything remotely British, the only thing these looks symbolise is self-assurance, style, and panache. Yes, certain items look as though they’ve been pilfered from a dodgy BBC3 sketch, but Bella owes many of her grails to an expert use of Depop, her current search history presumably reading “JD carrier bag”, “Zip photocard”, and “Sony Ericsson”.
Love Me or Hate Me, at least Bella’s embrace of real English fashion offers an alternative to all the Princess Diana cosplay that is so beloved of American street stylers – it just might be a while until she drops a Mille B-style diss track.