Short-sleeved shirts, canvas jackets, dungarees, beanies, sweat pants, Adidas sneakers, and straight-legged jeans: these are the standard effects of Katie Holmes – a woman whose style slipstreams between “girl next door” and “barista”, and a woman who men’s fashion magazines have described as “the greatest menswear don”, and a “New York menswear icon” who “should be on every guy’s streetwear moodboard”.
Katie Holmes’s off-duty wardrobe does have an obvious, masculine spirit – albeit with the odd overtly girlish touch. For example, this past weekend, Holmes was photographed walking around New York – damp hair in a hastily-braided plait – wearing a Saint Laurent hobo bag over an oversized mohair sweater with wide-legged jeans, and a pair of velveteen Mary Jane slippers from Vibi Venezia, which – much like her leprechaun loafers and orthopaedic cork wedges – seem to be this tomboy’s kryptonite.
The actor had spent the previous 24 hours celebrating her daughter Suri’s 18th birthday, an event that prompted the internet to swiftly dub the Hollywood neophyte an It-girl on the rise. Beyond the obvious intrigue of being a famous person’s child, Suri also seems to have inherited Holmes’s laid-back relationship with clothing: she recently wore a slouchy cardigan and double denim, Vans skate trainers – so far so tomboy-ish – with a hyper-femme corset top. In fact, I’d wager that the clothes Suri wore on her 18th birthday might have been an explicit throwback to one of her mother’s most discoursed looks. Please, revisit that moment here.
