Retro romance

We step back in time to the war-time and post-war years for inspiration this autumn/winter as we plunder the Forties for fashion tips. There’s no austerity drabness here, though, far from it.

“There’s lots of opulence and velvets,” says Katherine Busby of Harvey Nichols Leeds, which has provided the clothes and accessories for our shoot at the Hyde Park Picture House, an atmospheric little art house cinema that offers the perfect backdrop, all old-fashioned grandeur and lost-era glamour.

Our models, meanwhile, are four dancers from Northern Ballet Theatre, whose upcoming production of Hamlet is set in occupied Paris of the early 1940s.

The beauty of the looks seen here, admittedly from the high-end glamorous part of the Forties’ spectrum (think Keira Knightley in Atonement), is that they are timeless – on-trend for this season, but never out of fashion. For both men and women, they fit and flatter the body, tailoring or draping in clean, elegant lines. For women, the effect is feminine and sophisticated, for men, sleek yet structured.

Capturing, rather than copying, the Forties’ look is what to aim for. “To update, you have to have a sense of self. Add modern accessories. It’s a very modern way to dress, mixing traditional style pieces with edgier fashion pieces,” says Katherine.