When it comes to getting dressed, A-listers like Kylie Jenner and Naomi Campbell are masters of disguise – but in the digital age, is this now a look for everyone?
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It’s that time of year again: the few weeks when all of the magazines drop their most important edition – the September issue – stuffed with upcoming trends and starry editorials. British Vogue’s cover star of choice is Kylie Jenner, who used her accompanying interview to declare that “it’s all about a baseball cap”. She wasn’t talking about wearing one for style’s sake, but for privacy’s. “There’s an angle that you can do where they can’t see your face, and I wear a mask.” It seems to have been working: “I haven’t had one person notice me. I’ve been really able to get around,” she said of recent trips out in New York.
Incognito dressing is a rich seam. When Naomi Campbell was in London recently ahead of her V&A exhibition, she spoke of having a lot of fun visiting her favourite haunts without being clocked. She’s one of the most recognisable people in the world, with one of the most famous walks, but she was able to make herself unrecognisable. She achieved this, she said, by changing her body language (“I walk in a different way. It’s a very sergeant major walk.”); being very clear of where’s she’s going (“I’m not like dithering around like, ‘Oh, I’m lost’. No, I know where I’m going. I know which door I’m going into if I’m going into Harrods.); and dressing differently (“People think I don’t wear sneakers. I wear them a lot. I love high tops … and a mask.”).
