Walking home through central London last night, I found myself confronted with the last of the season’s corporate Christmas parties: HR professionals in flammable minidresses stumbling into Tiger Tiger and estate agents in novelty Christmas jumpers vaping outside an Irish pub and recruitment girlies huddled around an aromatic hotdog stand in sequined LBDs. The festive period is a spectacle rich in aesthetic crimes.
Unless, of course, your tastes are closer aligned to Sienna Miller and Kate Winslet. The actors were among a select group of patrons supporting the Story of Christmas Appeal – an annual carol service benefitting homeless and disadvantaged children – held last night at St George’s Chapel in Hanover Square. Both of them wore high-heeled tailoring: Winslet an off-white blazer with mannish shoulders, and Miller a slim-cut Dolce & Gabbana suit with a Marlene Dietrich-indebted bowtie. She assumed the chapel lectern to deliver a reading looking as though she was in fact performing “Lili Marlene”.
Here is a feasible alternative to dressing with a sense of occasion, a riposte to the garish kitsch dress codes that proliferate when party season takes hold. This seems to be Miller’s MO. She was not long ago photographed at a Frame event in New York wearing an Adidas bucket hat, and then some high-waisted Max Mara tailoring for a dinner with boyfriend Oli Green, and then a woollen jumpsuit for cocktails after last night’s service. So much for all those twinkling goddess dresses that make up her M&S collection… Miller will channelling Scrooge this Christmas.
