Whether you celebrated Valentine’s Day or not, you would have to possess a heart of stone not to be moved by One Day, the new Netflix adaptation of David Nicholls’s bestselling 2009 novel about Emma and Dexter, two university friends whose will-they-won’t-they situationship is a heartfelt reminder that the course of true love never does run smooth.
If you’re not one of the millions who’ve read the book (or seen the less successful 2011 film), here’s a synopsis: after meeting on their final night at Edinburgh University, the duo forge a bond so profound that it leads them to meet up every year on the same date, July 15, for the next 20 years. With every year that passes, they become more integral to each other’s lives, their love and affection for each other deepening.
If that sounds too schmaltzy for you, then watch it for the fashion. While it feels strange to refer to One Day as a “period drama”, the fact that the period in which it starts – the 1980s – occurred almost 40 years ago is surely good enough reason to do so. Emma and Dexter first meet in 1988, and in the intervening 20 years the details of their 80s and 90s wardrobes are recreated as faithfully as any in Mad Men or Bridgerton. Their style provides a trip down memory lane for those who remember the clothes the first time around, and a fashion masterclass for younger viewers invested in the current revivalism of Nineties trends.
It helps, of course, that Emma is played by the lovely Ambika Mod (from This Is Going To Hurt), and that Dexter is played by the equally lovely Leo Woodall (last seen as the co*cky co*ckney in Season 2 of White Lotus). But while both actors would look good in anything they wore, that didn’t make costume designer Emma Rees’s task a picnic. Translating a bestselling novel onto the screen is always a fraught task, particularly when the characters are as well-loved as Dex and Em. When the timescale involved is 20 years (told over 14 episodes), it’s even trickier. Their styles have to evolve, while also remaining true to them.
Rees says that she mainly achieved this sense of continuity via their accessories. “Jewellery, watches and glasses all stayed with both of them,” she tells The Telegraph. “Dex always wore his signet ring, and various flashy watches. He always wore good sunglasses – and never underestimate the power of a good shirt for Dex, even if it’s a battered Armani, as worn in [the scenes for] 2003.
“Emma’s glasses and watches in particular were a handy way of noting the time and fashions passing. She ended up in a Storm watch, and went through various styles of glasses,” says Rees.
Jeans were another useful way of showing the passage of time. “Emma wore Levi’s 501s in 1988, and again in 2000, this time turned up. Dex wore white Levi’s clubbing in 1992, and twisted Levi’s in 2002, which were really popular at the time. All were either hired or bought from eBay,” she says.
All the cast’s clothes were sourced from a wide range of outlets including costume houses, eBay and London’s Portobello Market. “Dex wore a lot of designer labels – Armani, Prada, Comme des Garcons – throughout the show, but he wore them more quietly towards the end,” says Rees. “Most of Dex’s costumes were hired from Carlo Manzi, a costume hire house headed up by a legendary figure who collected men’s fashion in the 90s.”
It’s a look that has won approval from fans. “Reading the book, I’d imagined Dex more as a ferrety Jamie Theakston type wearing jeans and sheux, rather than the ultra elegant Armani model Rees conjured him into. I was pleased to have my imagination proved incorrect,” says Teo van den Broeke, menswear expert and author of The Closet. “He’s absolutely on point for the period, though I wonder whether he’s dressed a touch too well. The only person I remember looking as good in roomy Nineties tailoring was Johnny Vaughan on The Big Breakfast, and even then, Dex looks much better than him.”
Dex’s style evolution is as compelling as it’s nuanced, each look perfectly pitched to reflect his character’s development. We first meet him as a foppish Edinburgh Uni toff in black tie and braces, a character that will be immediately familiar to anyone who went to or lived near one of the posher universities – or, failing that, recently watched Saltburn. By the early Nineties, he’s ditched the baggy-shirted trappings of toffdom and adopted the look of a B-list television presenter with a penchant for designer labels and drugs.
For van den Broeke, this is his most compelling style era. “Dex is a bit of a d–-k, and his wardrobe reflects that – big bouffant hair dos, oversized blazers with voluminous lapels, roomy trousers and elegantly cinched waists. “It’s a bit like Vanilla Ice reimagined by Giorgio Armani. There’s something so redolent of the excess of that decade in the way Dex dresses that I found myself totally intoxicated by it. It’s made me want to dress in precisely the same way.”
Emma’s style feels equally uplifting, with Rees’s use of bright colours evoking happier, more carefree times. Everyone will have their favourite Emma outfit, whether it’s the red scrunchie, yellow vest top and straight-leg jeans she wore on their first picnic atop Arthur’s Seat (and in the promotional posters), or the sexy-on-a-budget little black dress she chose for their dinner at The Pacific, a pretentious London restaurant that so faithfully recreates the legendary but long-shuttered Atlantic Bar (RIP) that anyone who ever dined there will experience a dizzying sense of deja vous.
The class difference between Emma and Dex is wonderfully conveyed, too. A working class Leeds girl who eventually becomes a teacher, Emma is always contained to savvy vintage or high street finds (Gap and Agnes B were favourites). Like most people who aren’t motivated by money, she’d consider designer labels a rip-off, and takes a more pragmatic view of clothes. Rees describes her style as “eclectic but assured. It was important not to have her look too fashionable, but equally to have the assurance to wear a vintage dress.”
My favourite look of hers was the blue polkadot dress she wore to her graduation ball in episode one – it was so defiantly quirky compared to the generic dresses of her peers. It was a classic Emma move that any girl on a budget will relate to: that you might not be able to afford a designer label, but you can still stand out in other ways, with a stylishness honed from years of having to be inventive. It’s also Rees’s favourite look. “That was an 80s dress we came across on eBay, worn with some 80s zip-up boots and a studded belt. It really singled her out as a unique and intriguing character.”
Obviously, One Day is a story about romantic yearning, but I can’t be the only viewer for whom it also prompted a yearning for simpler, pre-smartphone times. Yes, the period detail is on point, but what the show most masterfully evokes are those halcyon days when outfits weren’t over-thought, over-styled, or worn in full knowledge that they might be judged for all eternity on the ‘gram.
In the Nineties, you dressed for yourself, not the fashion police, and if the bandana was a tragic mis-step, so what? Nobody was recording you for posterity. Whatever else it is, One Day is a love story about jeans and T-shirts, shirts and shorts, favourite clothes worn on repeat because you liked them.
If love is a powerful force, so is nostalgia.
“Everyone looked so damn good, plus every little subculture was so crystallised and uniquely defined,” says Rees of the Nineties. “There were still small boutiques designing and making brilliant British fashion, while brands from all over the world were a lot more available and affordable.”
Tomo Delaney, who runs the Instagram account @90sLondon, agrees that the Nineties was a special time for fashion: “It was a terrible name, but ‘cool Britannia’ really did exist. Unlike the clothes we wore in the Eighties or Noughties, Nineties clothes were just cool. I still wear so many things that I wore then, and they’ve barely dated.” So there you have it. Love might not endure, but a good wardrobe will last forever.
