The return of matchy-matchy celebrity dressing

At the turn of the millennium the trend failed to stretch beyond the red carpet, but now social media allows more people to experience the dopamine rush of celebrating a successful romantic partnership with pairing prints instead of #couplegoals.

“No one is dressing up the same and not sharing it,” Luscombe says. “It’s a bit of a brag moment. It’s great when it’s fun. It can become a problem when you have to do it, and it’s about controlling people’s perception of you.”

The diminishing divide between men’s and women’s fashion, championed by Gucci, Joseph Altuzarra and Australian designer Dion Lee, is fuelling the fun. In the ’60s, Cher and husband Sonny Bono’s matching costumes predicted the clothing racks of today where silhouettes, prints and embellishments are applied to all clothing, with minimal regard to gender.

“It’s the way the market has been shifting,” says Melbourne stylist Carlos Mangubat, who has worked with Harper’s Bazaar, L’Officiel and Town & Country magazine. “Brands want to show that clothes are genderless. Now the girl no longer has to borrow her boyfriend’s blazer. It’s the same look and the same cut, but it’s hers. From a branding perspective, it’s strong.”

While the shift towards genderless fashion has emerged from queer culture, same-same dressing is currently not as popular with same-sex couples, failing to resurface since actress Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres relentlessly co-ordinated throughout their ill-fated relationship in the late ’90s.

Luscombe differentiates between the mirroring technique utilised by Jonah Hill and Sarah Brady and merging, which is commonplace with LGBTQI+ couples.

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“For the first six years my wife and I were constantly being asked if we were sisters,” Luscombe says. “Merging is where you start dressing similarly because you admire and are attracted to one another. It can be a sign of trust, but it’s not intentional. You dress separately, leave the house and realise you’re both in the same look. It happens a lot.

“Matching is when you are consciously putting matching clothes on. It’s typically more straight people,” Luscombe says. “For the moment.”

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