The right stripes: how fashion fell for the gondolier

GUARDIANUK

A Venice boatman and, right, MM6 Maison Margiela top, £175. Composite: Rex

To describe the ‘gondolier’ look as a stealth one is only partially correct. The romance between fashion and workers’ uniforms has been long and inspired. This makes sense – fashion has a fixation on dolling up the functional and few things are more practical than fisherman waterproofs, the bleu de travail French jacket, and a plumber’s boilersuit. Chances are you own the parts – striped top, red neckerchief, wide-brimmed straw hat, wide dark trousers – you just haven’t viewed them as a sum.

To describe the ‘gondolier’ look as a stealth one is only partially correct. The romance between fashion and workers’ uniforms has been long and inspired. This makes sense – fashion has a fixation on dolling up the functional and few things are more practical than fisherman waterproofs, the bleu de travail French jacket, and a plumber’s boilersuit. Chances are you own the parts – striped top, red neckerchief, wide-brimmed straw hat, wide dark trousers – you just haven’t viewed them as a sum.

Leandra Medine aka Manrepeller is a longtime advocate of the look: wide sailor trousers, a hat, a stripy top, a scarf tied with a flourish. Ditto Hilary Duff, who went as far as to stand on water in hers (although in fairness, it was a bikini, and a paddleboard not a gondola, but you get the idea). It’s a likely journey, also now that the age-old Gondolier Association of Venice (which protects the city’s 400-odd gondoliers) has a sponsor, which means all clothing worn has a logo to protect the industry. So surely fashion has the green light to borrow the old one?

Bandana, £15, Levi’s.

Where to start? Striped shirts in the form of the Breton top have gone mass. On the high street this season they have a few added twists, cuts and folds. Meanwhile, red neckerchiefs are a pan-seasonal bestseller at Levi’s. Straw hats are, of course, a Martha’s Vineyard perennial but also acceptable for those among us who don’t holiday with the Obamas (see Borsalino and Asos).

 Stripes and scarf: Leandra Medine.

The brave among us could do worse than a pair of Italian slippers (a little at odds with the modernisation of the Venetian waterways but stay with us) and which have been flipped into something everyday-ish by Robert Clergerie. The real thing – felt slippers called furlane, named so after the Friuli region of northern Italy – have been repurposed by Le Monde Beryl for the Italian fashion market.

The trick, perhaps, is the softly-softly approach – take two components rather than head-to-toe – and view it as simply a poaching of practical tics. Otherwise, well, you risk venturing into fancy dress, and that will ruin the “worker look” for everyone.