Tassels have been around for hundreds of years, and were a denotation of class and affluence; stately homes are chock full of them. We’ve all been on boring days out to various National Trust places, and what’s the one thing that links them all? Tassels. On the end of four poster beds, hanging from the first example of a three piece suite, even the secret paintings of the Henry VIII’s favourite brothel have them. What they didn’t put them on – and this is fashion being forward thinking – is handbags and shoes.
Madness, I know. I don’t know how it didn’t occur to them, maybe they were too busy dodging the plague, boffing the help or maybe they didn’t need anywhere to put their iPhones, but no one put the two together.
Fortunately those clever guys and gals at Future Fashions HQ (not an actual place, don’t Google Map it) have brought tassels back and are determined to reinvent them.
70s glam is nothing without hippy, artsy accessories to make it less Deirdre Barlow in Coronation Street and more Farrah Fawcett (maybe she rest in peace). Massive flares, leather wedges, balloon, chiffon sleeves, they’re going to be staples of your wardrobe, that’s a given, you’ve only got to look at the lead in stands of TopShop to see that.
How do you make your flares look like you’re controlling your look? Tassels is how.
The over the body day bag is so close to being the most sought after spring/summer trend that the situation is becoming a bit of a joke. Small bags that are just the right size to be functional but without the glitz and faff of a clutch, you can get just what you would need in them without them banging around like a pair of clackers. And what would propel the over the body day bag into accessory super stardom? Why, a tassel of course.
The only cardinal sin regarding tassels is that, unlike Michael McIntyre’s face, less is definitely more. There’s no need to have more than two tassels. Any more and you’ll start to look like a provincial cushion, which may be good for a week, two max, but when the novelty of strangers ploomphing you in Starbucks eventually runs out, you’ll be pulling at those tassels like Henry Cavill’s knicker elastic.