Ironic dressing gets in on the joke

Kelly Osbourne is often heralded as a fan of ironic dressing.

This summer's trends - all pretty and floaty and covered in chunky beads and bracelets - may involve more than a smattering of hippie sincerity, but irony will always be more fashionable than any kind of earnestness.

In fact, in some fashionable circles irony has been the new black for longer than black has. As Oscar Wilde once put it: "In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential."

This is probably why you'll often find fashion editors writing about wearing something with an ironic twist, seeing the irony in a certain T-shirt slogan or finding a peculiarly ironic hat.

It's all very well for the select few who get the joke. But what about the rest of the world?

When we see someone wearing cream-coloured 80s-style moccasins and a naff, grey windbreaker, should we hail them as a leader of style? Or is it just your goofy neighbour from down the road who's still wearing the clothes his grandmother bought him when he was 12?

Is it a chunky knitted sweater sporting a big, red, prancing reindeer straight out of Bella Freud's last London collection - or is it just plain nasty? Should one laugh or cry? How the hell does anyone know?

Okay, so irony, as defined by various dictionaries, is usually considered to be an "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs".

Apply that to clothing and you'll get a trucker cap worn by some slick chap who works in an advertising agency - ironic because trucker caps are usually the choice of guys with beards, beers and big rigs, not skinny, well-paid city types with an espresso in one hand and a Blackberry in the other.

Same goes for faded AC/DC T-shirts worn by blond TV celebrities. This is ironic because one would usually expect to find these women in designer shirts, not head-banging at a rock gig or gadding about in a high-powered 4WD.

Some designers have based whole collections on their own ironic let's-do-the-opposite - in jokes.

Karen Walker is a master at this. She's come up with slogans like Young, Willing and Eager for her T-shirts; amusing when worn by the old, unenthusiastic and jaded.

Designers such as Miguel Adrover, Imitation of Christ and Ken Courtney of Ju$t Another Rich Kid came to prominence due to some similarly ironic overtones to their work.

When they were anti-fashion-establishment, Imitation of Christ took pride in making cocktail frocks out of used sweatshirts and selling them for thousands.

Courtney made his money with a series of T-shirts saying things like, "I f***ed Chloe Sevigny", or one where the wearer could insert a celebrity name.

And because he had no financial backing for his first collection in New York in 2000, Adrover made a coat out of an old mattress cover, a poncho from second-hand Burberry scarves and an evening dress out of an inside-out, old Burberry raincoat.

That subversion of high-class labels wasn't limited to Adrover's range. You've probably seen examples like the cheeky redrawing of Chanel's linked Cs around. And this coming northern winter, snowboard pants and jackets will feature mock versions of the Louis Vuitton and Burberry prints along with pinstripes.

Because of its dictionary definition, ironic fashion (just like fashion itself, actually) is always going to be based on a reaction. It's never what you expected.

That's why there's a lot of retro and vintage clothing and kitsch involved in developing ironic fashion. As soon as something - like 80s-style moccasins, grey windbreakers, mullet haircuts or Sarah Moon pictures - has been bad taste for long enough, it will doubtless be adopted by a group of ironic op-shopping stylists or groovy rock musicians and, within months, become incredibly trendy. For instance, a recent issue of Vogue based a whole fashion shoot on Sarah Moon's 70s' pictures - fairly tasteless until recently, the soft, airbrushed look fits this summer's Bohemian trend.

And of course, like any fashion-forward trend, as soon as the mainstream gets it, it just isn't so funny anymore. After all, how many times can you handle hearing the same joke over and over?

But all of this still hasn't answered that first question - how do you tell if someone's being fashionably ironic or not?

It seems irony is in the eye of the beholder. Ironic fashion lives in an ever-changing quagmire of fast-moving trends, subjective opinions and insider jokes.

Think about it. In the city a Ride Me, Cowboy T-shirt may be amusing in a cocktail bar. But it's downright hilarious if you live on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Canterbury cowboys.

So, adopting a bit of irony into your wardrobe should be about doing the unexpected and having a bit of a laugh. What you want to do to create intrigue in your wardrobe is present people with a clash between what they might expect from your style and what you give 'em. But be aware that if you don't think it's funny (or you don't know why it's funny), everyone else may miss the point too.

After all, you need a fair bit of sartorial confidence and a whole bunch of buddies who are in on the joke to don a pair of 80s-style moccasins before anybody else does.

Current ironic chic

* Trucker hats (see Paris Hilton, right)
* Mullet haircuts
* 80s' bad-taste prints
* Fluoro colours
* Skinny leather ties
* T-shirts of all kinds, either with cheeky slogans or advertising things no one would expect from you.
* Subverted designer logos and prints where you'd never expect to see them
* Porn moustaches and other ironic facial hair
* Wildly colourful suit jackets
* Tapestry bags
* Sarah Moon pictures and styling
* Moccasins and comfortable old-lady-style shoes
* Chunky plastic jewellery
* Puffball skirts

* Read more about what's happening in the world of food, wine, fashion and beauty in viva, part of your Herald print edition every Wednesday.