STYLE WATCH: BY GRACE CAHILL
GROWING UP IN THE 1990S, I knew all about neon colours. This was the decade of Britney, the Spice Girls and Clueless – all champions of a flashy, fluorescent skintight dress. Everything in my wardrobe back then had to be colourful – even my Reebok trainers that I distinctively remember crying over because my mother refused to buy them in luminous green. After a big hissy fit in Champion Sports, I settled for white classics with bright pink soles, worn religiously with my buttonhole shellsuit bottoms and matching zip-up hoodie.
I had thought my neon days were long over until I saw Marc Jacobs’ spring/summer offering, in which the designer imagined brighter than bright shades. The collection featured power suits in neon orange teamed with neon pink bumbags – the stuff of my teen dreams. Designer Jeremy Scott, meanwhile, brightened up his collection with neon green trims on mini-dresses while Miuccia Prada styled citrus brights with black and navy in her forthcoming collection.
You can imagine my delight at this neon revival on the high street – everything from bright pink turtlenecks to canary yellow kaftans and lime green ruched midi dresses. The new neons are significantly more easy on the eye than their 1990s predecessors – think watermelons, greens and pinks, a palette of metallic glazed sorbets, rather than highlighter pens. This week I spotted a beautiful wrap pink dress with ruffled hemline and exaggerated sleeves at Topshop. Zara seems to have captured the mood too with turtlenecks in the same colour teamed with printed high-waist midi skirts. I also love the contrast of white and yellow, above right, with the heaviness of high-waist jeans.
The key to the current modern take on neon is to formalise rave hues in structured silhouettes. This will make them much more grown-up. A tailored power dress suit and sleek separates teamed with glossylooking accessories are clever ways of dipping into bright colours. Structured boyfriend and cropped jeans work equally well too, off-duty. Fabrics like satin and crepe absorb colour-rich dyes the best.
Style-wise, start in small doses or build in a muted colour palette, like dusty earth tones or pastels, that will either pair or contrast nicely. If you’re looking for inspiration, google the pink cheesecloth midi dress Victoria Beckham wore from her own collection a few weeks back.
Don’t rule out your own wardrobe too – chances are you already have a neon gem in there that you’ve forgotten about. Mine’s a yellow off-the-shoulder silk dress from Marks & Spencer that I can only wear when I’ve lathered myself in tinted moisturiser the night before – it always garners a few compliments when I wear it with espadrilles and my hair tied into a messy ponytail on a sunny day.
“THE NEW NEONS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EASY ON THE EYE THAN THEIR 1990s PREDECESSORS”