Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: Posh Grandpa is fashion's new main character

Posh Grandpa dressing centers on characterful outfits that make you smile while adding friction and surprise to keep style interesting. The approach rejects the cultural pull toward looking rich and pretty, favoring playful, sometimes ridiculous combinations that deliver more joy. The look emphasizes slip-on shoes, comfortable trousers, and simple tops such as henleys or quarter-zips. Jewelry stays minimal and hair remains simple to achieve louche glamour rather than power dressing. Inspiration comes from menswear, but with a retro and refined twist distinct from streetwear or normcore. Fashion direction is suggested to be found in vintage stores and car boot sales, where shoppers model what will become popular later.

"Character dressing is style that makes you smile, but it's not just that. There is infinitely more joy in these looks, however silly they are, than there is in aspiring to look rich and pretty, which is where the aesthetic centre of gravity of our culture swings back to again and again. The esoteric sides of fashion's personality capture something important about style, which is that it needs a bit of friction to make it interesting. The pebble in the boot, the surprise to snag the eye. This is where the magic happens."

"I am all in with Posh Grandpa dressing, and not just for the lols, although I am also very much enjoying the spectacularly ridiculous vibe name. This is exactly how I want to dress most of the time. Slip-on shoes? Check. Comfy trousers? Copy that. Henley button-ups, or maybe a sensible quarter-zip? All over it. Keep the jewellery minimal, the hair simple: we want louche glamour, not Dynasty power dressing."

"Taking inspiration from menswear is the oldest trick in the chic woman's playbook, but if streetwear was about dressing like an adolescent boy and normcore was a nod to the dads, Posh Grandpa is retro and refined. If you want to know where fashion is going next, the best place to look is not the catwalk but vintage stores and car boot sales. Vintage shoppers are the most fashion-forward demographic, so what they are wearing now you'll be wearing in a year or so."

"The look is Harry Styles, A$AP Rocky and David Hockney. It is Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme and Cillian Murphy in Peaky Blinders. It is Alexa Chung in a perfect navy crewneck sweater, and"

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