What a year it’s been for Chemena Kamali. Her Chloé debut in February was that rare instant success, with fashion editors and A-listers alike won over by her boho-infused designs, which harked back to the days of Karl Lagerfeld and Phoebe Philo at the French fashion house. “It was the most beautiful show I’ve seen in a long time,” OG Chloé girl Sienna Miller, who sat beaming on the front row, said at the time. “It was like my dream wardrobe walking past me. It felt so nostalgic – like how the brand felt in the early ’00s.”
There’s no doubt that Kamali’s light, romantic, often ruffed designs have filled a gaping hole in fashion. “A lot of what I’m doing is from a really honest place,” the creative director told Vogue’s Chloe Schama over the summer. “For me, women who wear Chloé embody a powerful femininity and confidence.”
It’s no wonder, then, that new Chloé, as it’s been dubbed, has been so coveted among the A-list. Miller herself noted at the brand’s most recent fashion show that she’d already worn most of the autumn/winter 2024 collection, from the sheer lace jumpsuit, complete with logo belt, that she appeared in on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet in May to the towering Maxine wedges that went viral after she – and several other guests – all wore them while sitting on the front row.
Other fans have included Daisy Edgar-Jones, whose trio of Chloé looks helped her, in the words of my colleague Daniel Rodgers, “enter the It-girl arena”. It’s worth noting that the brand seems to have enforced a policy of stylists pulling full runway looks only, with the likes of Miller, Edgar-Jones, Zoe Saldana, Keira Knightley, and Suki Waterhouse all sporting head-to-toe Chloé, exactly as it appeared on the catwalk (though an exception seems to have been made for Beyoncé). It’s the perfect advert for the brand – and one of the reasons we’ve noticed Chloé’s ubiquity this year – but doesn’t allow for much individuality on the styling front.
Still, Kamali’s new vision for the brand clearly has cross-generation appeal, straddling Gen Z-ers like Addison Rae and Gen X-ers like Jennifer Lopez, Maya Rudolph and Liya Kebede. Then, of course, came the endorsement from US vice president Kamala Harris, who wore several Chloé suits on the campaign trail – including one in “coconut brown”, which was thought to be a cheeky nod to the Kamala coconut tree meme (read our explainer here) but was apparently just a coincidence.
While many of the runway looks might be out of reach for the average customer, the accessories have undoubtedly filtered through, with the Bracelet bag (referencing an old Phoebe Philo style from the Noughties) proving particularly popular. There’s also been a Chloé revival on the second-hand market, with The RealReal seeing a 130 per cent spike in sales in the month after Kamali’s debut show. We imagine it’s only a matter of time before Noughties favourites like the Paddington and Paraty are reissued by the designer on the catwalk.
