Kendall Jenner Is Learning to Make Weird (and Wonderful) Fashion Choices

The supermodel seems to be realizing that it takes a little weirdness to make an It girl.

A lot of famous people are falling for a prepackaged idea of good taste. This is because high-profile stylists will often dress their clients in full-look ensembles from brands like The Row—wide-leg trousers, draped trench coats, and non-shoes—which immediately telegraphs a sense of antifashion highbrowism when worn. It sends up a distress signal that says: “I own rare coffee-table books.”

There is nothing wrong with that (The Row is genius), but when so many other famous people are doing the exact same thing, it can start to feel homogeneous. Algorithmic, even. And much like Lily-Rose Depp in arch-support Scholls and Kylie Jenner in vintage Prada, Kendall Jenner seems to be realizing that it takes more than a Half-Moon handbag to make as an It girl. Having worn a sinister-shoulder Bottega Veneta dress while out and about in New York last week, last night Jenner wore a sculptured hourglᴀss look from the brand’s autumn-winter 2023 collection in Paris.

The dress has a cinch-waist leather-embossed corset with a plump flannel skirt that sits beyond the parameters of the hips. Wearing something like this suggests there is more going on inside a person’s head than the desire to look nice and polished and palatable. That you might like something unusual (because you have learned to recognize beauty in the bizarre) is about connoisseurship over consumption. There is a sense of the person beneath the clothes, with ideas, likes, and dislikes, which is the essence of real style. Looks like Kendall Jenner is making the leap.