Material World

It’s November — which in magazine calendar-speak means December issues, which in turn means Best-Dressed Lists. Yahoo! Whoop-dee-doo. Who makes the cut?

First out of the blocks is Harper’s Bazaar UK, and guess who tops the list? Ok, well, the headline kind of gives it away.

Getty Images

Yes, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is perhaps the most unsurprising choice ever. Indeed, I would argue I could have predicted this in January, before she had even embarked on her Alexander McQueen/Erdem/Amanda Wakeley (that’s a Wakeley dress from last week, left) journey into the public eye. Because really, let’s be honest: best-dressed lists are not just about being best-dressed, and the Duchess isn’t the best dressed woman in the country.

Best-dressed lists, at least as they currently exist, are about selling — magazines and clothes — and the Duchess is, arguably, the best-dressed young royal. Or the best twenty-something figurehead who mixes high street and designer. Or maybe the best dressed for her complicated, ill-defined role.

But best-dressed full stop? Shouldn’t that imply an individuality and creativity others can’t emulate? Something that sets your sartorial choices apart, into a league of their own? Shouldn’t they be about what others can’t do? And isn’t the Duchess’s great appeal that what she does do is so incredibly accessible?

The Bazaar folks justify their choice by saying: “Judges praised Kate’s ability to wear designs from Alexander McQueen to the high street with the same elegance.” While there’s nothing wrong with that, I think it does point up a fallacy at the heart of this fashion world tradition, which is that when we use the words “best-dressed”, we don’t always mean best-dressed. Often we mean “most influential” when it comes to dress. Sometimes the two are interchangeable (especially in the case of men’s wear, when it comes to people like Prince Pavlos of Greece or Arki Busson) but usually they are not.

So anyone want to join me in a campaign to change “Best Dressed List” to “Fashion’s Most Influential”? It would unquestionably bring some rationalism to the choices — though then again, rationalism has never exactly been high on the fashion hot list.