
From the shoes Rose Repetto made for Brigitte Bardot in 1956 to the autumn runways of 2026: why does the humblest shoe in a woman’s wardrobe keep coming back whenever we change the question of what a woman actually needs?

The white shirt was never elegant because it was white. It was elegant because staying white was almost impossible - and a man who managed to keep it that way, day after day, was proving something worth far more than good taste: that someone else washed, starched, and pressed his linen for him, and that he himself never had to do work dirty enough to soil his collar.