Incognito mode: how dressing under the radar became the ultimate humblebrag

It’s that time of year again: the few weeks when all of the magazines drop their most important edition – the September issue – stuffed with upcoming trends and starry editorials. British Vogue’s cover star of choice is Kylie Jenner, who used her accompanying interview to declare that “it’s all about a baseball cap”. She wasn’t talking about wearing one for style’s sake, but for privacy’s. “There’s an angle that you can do where they can’t see your face, and I wear a mask.” It seems to have been working: “I haven’t had one person notice me. I’ve been really able to get around,” she said of recent trips out in New York.

Incognito dressing is a rich seam. When Naomi Campbell was in London recently ahead of her V&A exhibition, she spoke of having a lot of fun visiting her favourite haunts without being clocked. She’s one of the most recognisable people in the world, with one of the most famous walks, but she was able to make herself unrecognisable. She achieved this, she said, by changing her body language (“I walk in a different way. It’s a very sergeant major walk.”); being very clear of where’s she’s going (“I’m not like dithering around like, ‘Oh, I’m lost’. No, I know where I’m going. I know which door I’m going into if I’m going into Harrods.); and dressing differently (“People think I don’t wear sneakers. I wear them a lot. I love high tops … and a mask.”).

For celebrities who feel they have no place to hide, you can see how nailing incognito dressing could be a lifeline. For everyone else, there has long been something electrifying – and culturally inspiring – about the thought of brushing shoulders with someone with the kind of notoriety, respect, wealth, creative talent and/or bone structure that most of us can only dream of, be it an off-duty writer or a reality star. This idea has long been glamorised. It is the stuff of Hollywood magic – in Roman Holiday a princess, played by Audrey Hepburn, escapes from her gilded palace-prison with requisite tiaras and falls in love with a news reporter in the shape of Gregory Peck. It is the ultimate, fantastical ending to the incognito story.

It isn’t just for famous people, though – we all have a version of incognito dressing, on days when we want to fly under the radar. Maybe it’s jeans and a T-shirt; maybe, as with celebrities, it involves a cap and sunglasses. But today’s fame economy is doing something strange to incognito dressing. If the rise of reality TV, social media and the ubiquity of influencer culture have made the desire for fame more widespread, it’s also blurred the lines. An interesting by-product is the idea of not lusting after fame becoming its own kind of humblebrag.

It is a mood that has filtered down into that most 2024 of mediums: the slogan T-shirt. At Copenhagen fashion week earlier this month, attendees who had at least the superficial trappings of people keen to be photographed wore T-shirts that read “I’m not a fucking influencer”. Outside shows at a recent fashion week in Paris, a guest wore a “No pictures please” top; all slogan T-shirts that seem to deny a desire for attention while simultaneously demanding it.

There is a famous-person equivalent; what we could call the faux-incognito look. In many instances, it involves the same bones as incognito mode – a hat, shades and exaggerated silhouettes – but everything is so elevated that there is no mistaking a celebrity. It is a look you can’t swing a cat for on Hampstead Heath in north London. Jenner namechecks Leonardo DiCaprio, who “has a distinct incognito look that now is not incognito because people know it so well”. Maybe it tries a little too hard. Much more fun – if even less effective – are the famously paparazzi-razzing antics of Dustin Hoffman, who hides behind trees and wears paper bags with eye holes over his head.

To read the complete version of this newsletter – complete with this week’s trending topics in The Measure and your wardrobe dilemmas solved – subscribe to receive Fashion Statement in your inbox every Thursday.