Bella Hadid hasn’t lost her penchant for trendsetting. After spending most of 2023 under the radar, the supermodel has only been back in the public eye for a few weeks now, but she’s already setting the 2024 fashion trends the rest of us are bound to follow. You won’t need glasses to spot them, either—but you might want some afterward.
When Hadid first started appearing back on the streets of New York City in early December, ‘It’ girl watchers detected a subtle shift in her style. Her looks seemed a little less playful, the color palettes a bit more muted. “Coquettish” wasn’t in the vocabulary, but she wasn’t exactly going the “Quiet Luxury 101” route, either. Her outfits weren’t so much “trophy wife/socialite” as they were “’90s Business Woman Special;” less Jackie Onassis boarding a yacht, more Carolyn Bessette running errands.
A photo she posted on Instagram shortly before Christmas snapped it all into place. Bella’s new vibe? Well, it’s what the Internet is calling “Office Siren,” topped off by what may be the first major accessory trend of the new year: the “Bayonetta” glasses.
What is “Office Siren?” It’s an aesthetic firmly rooted in 1990s office wear—specifically, America’s vision of it. It’s skirt suits (perhaps mini, perhaps pencil-length) or work pants, button-down shirts (maybe striped), and a shoe that means business. Imagine your favorite leading lady from a ’90s David E. Kelley legal drama (say, Calista Flockhart in Ally McBeal or Lara Flynn Boyle in The Practice) and sex it up just a little. Not too much. There you go.
The hero piece of some of the Kin entreprenuer’s most recent looks, however, may be what some call “Bayonetta glasses.” That’s in reference to the comically busty Japanese video game heroine who dresses like a sexy demon aside from her very sensible pair of black eyeglasses (Lady Gaga is a noted fan of the games). Others have compared the eyeglass style to the ones that Gisele Bündchen’s character wears in The Devil Wears Prada or those favored by social media personality and Marc Jacobs Heaven campaign star Blizzy McGuire. Whatever the case, if the frames are rectangular and they look like they could be purchased at the height of the ’90s designer eye glasses craze, they fit.
Hadid, of course, has already been photographed shopping for more pairs.
Naturally, similarly styled sunglasses complete the look for the outdoors.
The vibe seems like both a reaction against and a logical evolution from the “stealth wealth” and “quiet luxury” trends of 2023. Yet there’s still an air of “coded luxury” about. Maybe her button-down was custom ordered from Calvin Klein. Maybe it’s from Express. Like “quiet luxury,” the idea isn’t to broadcast how much you paid for the garment. But this time around, the message is that you paid for it yourself.