Celebrity Fashion Heirlooms
Keeping fashion in the family: Heirlooms and second-hand staple pieces
With the latest fashion trends on everybody’s lips, it’s time to step back, slow down, and think about re-wearing some of our oldie but goldie fashion favourites.
From pearl necklaces inherited from grandparents to red-carpet dresses from parents, many Brits are wearing their family’s fashion heirlooms. This emerging trend has influenced celebrity culture, from pop royalty to British Crown royalty.
Using article research, we have created a guide with 50 occasions where celebrities have passed down clothing and accessories to family members and other celebrities. We have gathered the years the pieces were originally worn, the date they were re-worn and the year difference. We have also uncovered which celebrities have re-worn their own iconic looks and how much time has passed since they originally sported these looks.
Without further ado, let’s dive into the results.
Which celebrities have passed down their fashion heirlooms?
We wanted to uncover which celebrities have been most influenced by the heirloom trend. Using article research, we’ve created a guide to the top 10 famous names that have handed down their iconic looks to family members. We’ve listed the top five below.
The royal family are known for their extensive wardrobes and fine jewellery collections, from gowns, shirts, hats, and shoes to platinum necklaces and diamond-encrusted tiaras. With such a vast and historic selection of items, it’s no surprise the royal family account for more than half of our top 10 roundup and all of our top five.
Queen Elizabeth II and Kate Middleton rank first with the greatest year difference between clothing items worn, at 69 years. Kate paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II by wearing her go-to three-strand pearl necklace in 2022. The Queen first wore the necklace in 1953, and the exquisite piece made appearances throughout her reign. Not only is the necklace itself now an heirloom, but the pearls used to make it were also heirlooms – gems from past jewellery.
The late Queen Elizabeth II and her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice Mapelli Mozzi, take second place with a 58-year difference. Princess Beatrice wore her grandmother’s wedding dress in 2020. Beatrice’s ‘something borrowed’ was crafted from satin and ivory with hand-embroidered crystals and diamantes, originally worn by Queen Elizabeth II in 1962.
Princess Diana and Kate Middleton are in third place for the greatest year difference, at 41 years. The sapphire and diamond earrings were given to Kate as a proposal gift from Prince William in 2010. They have become part of the Princess of Wales’ signature look; she has worn them many times, including to the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022. They originally belonged to Princess Diana, who first wore them in 1981 after being gifted them by Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
Princess Diana and Kate Middleton, as well as Prince William and Prince Louis, tie for fourth place with a 37-year difference.
Princess Diana and Kate Middleton appear again on our roundup after the Princess of Wales was seen in another of Diana’s favourite accessories. The glamourous emerald choker was spotted on Kate Middleton in 2022, where she matched it with a green gown for the Boston Earthshot Prize Awards. In 1985, the choker was worn by Princess Diana around her head during her tour of Australia with King Charles III. Despite being worn by Diana on multiple occasions, the choker originally belonged to Queen Mary of Teck, the wife of King George V and grandmother of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Prince William and his son Prince Louis share the same sailor suit, with a 37-year difference between the item being worn. The sailor suit was first worn by Prince William in 1985 at a Trooping the Colour military parade when he was around three years old; it was on trend for children during this time. The suit was later worn by Louis in 2022. The prince was seen wearing it on the Buckingham Palace balcony at a Trooping the Colour parade as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Princess Victoria and Princess Estelle complete our top five with a 34-year difference. Princess Victoria of Sweden was first seen wearing a gold and white floaty dress for King Carl XVI’s 34th birthday in 1980. Her daughter, Princess Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary, Duchess of Östergötlan, wore the same dress to Princess Leonore’s christening in June 2014.
Which celebrities have re-worn their iconic looks the most?
Many celebrities wouldn’t dream of repeating a look, especially on the red carpet, but a few have re-worn their favourite outfits to make a statement.
Using article research, we have tapped into this trend and compiled a list of the top celebrities who have re-worn their clothes. We have delved into when the pieces were originally worn, the date they were re-worn and the year difference. Let’s dive into the fashion throwbacks.
Rita Monroe ranks in first place, with a 56-year difference between the clothing piece being worn. The EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards) winner shocked audiences with her 2018 Oscars red carpet appearance wearing the same iconic black and gold dress she wore in 1962. This time, she paired the dress with long black evening gloves. The 91-year-old star visited the 1962 awards to accept her Oscar for West Side Story. The dress was made in Manila, Philippines, where she flew from just before her Oscar win. Monroe believed the Oscar would be awarded to Judy Garland instead.
Princess Anne takes the second-place spot, with a 38-year difference. The late Queen’s daughter is renowned for her no-nonsense attitude and bold wardrobe, with multiple stand-out items. One favourite that keeps returning is her cream and navy springtime coat. The outfit was first worn to the Royal Ascot in 1980 and reappeared in 1985, 2015, and 2018.
Laura Dern, Jane Fonda, and Winona Ryder share third place, with a 25-year difference between items worn.
Another favourite item garnering multiple re-wears is American Academy Award winner Laura Dern’s black cut out dress. Dern first wore the glamourous dress in 1995 for the Sheba Humanitarian Awards Gala, which she attended with her then-boyfriend Jeff Goldblum. The dress has been spotted multiple times over the last 25 years, most recently at the 2020 Oscars, where she accepted her award for best supporting actress in Marriage Story.
Jane Fonda stunned audiences when she re-wore her famous white suit to the 2021 Golden Globes. The 85-year-old actress was seen wearing the white suit in 1996, demonstrating the timelessness of the look.
In 2016, Ryder was spotted wearing the same graphic t-shirt she wore to a red carpet event in 1991, proving you don’t need designer outfits to reclaim the vintage look.
Calista Flockhart takes the fourth-place spot, with a 24-year difference. Flockhart first wore a yellow satin floor-length skirt to the 1999 Emmys, where she was nominated for Ally McBeal. She paired this with a white button-down shirt which revealed her stomach. She re-wore the iconic yellow skirt with a black off-the-shoulder top for the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in 2023.
Jennifer Lopez completes our top five with a 20-year difference. Lopez wore a tropical print sheer maxi dress to the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000, and this became one of her most favoured looks – so much so that she wore it a second time in 2020.
How many Instagram hashtags relate to the trend?
This trend sees hundreds of Instagram users posting their pre-loved clothing, jewellery, and heirlooms. For some, it’s a way to flex their vintage finds, while for others, it can be much deeper.
#handmedowns takes the crown for the most-used hashtag relating to the trend, with 207,550 posts.
#handmedown is in second place, with 85,283 posts on the photo-sharing platform.
#sharingclothes is in third place with 4,078 posts, and #lovehandmedowns is in fourth place with 3,233 posts.
#mymomsclothes completes our top five, with 1,803 posts.
How many TikTok videos relate to the trend?
There has been a recent surge in GRWM (Get Ready With Me) TikToks and Reels featuring vintage, hand-me-down, and thrifted items. More and more people are searching their wardrobes to find fun ways to match old items and create entirely new outfits.
There are a whopping 95 million (95,005,860 to be exact) TikTok video searches relating to this trend.
The hashtag #handmedowns is in first place, with 57.9 million views.
#sharingclothes is in second place with 15 million views, and #handmedown follows in third with 13 million views.
#mumsclothes takes fourth place with 3.6 million views, and #mymomsclothes completes our top five with 3.4 million views.
Which fashion heirlooms do parents wish they had saved for their children?
Fashion pieces have a habit of resurfacing; an item you once gave away may now be trending on TikTok. With that in mind, we surveyed 500 people aged 35 and over to find out what clothing items they wished they had saved for the next generation.
A third (33%) of our respondents said they wished they had saved their denim jackets for the next generation, while 30% wished they had saved their leather jackets. But what makes these items so iconic?
The first denim jacket was made in 1880 as a durable utility garment for manual labourers in America. By the mid-20th century, denim jackets had gained notoriety after James Dean wore his with pride in Rebel Without a Cause, inspiring everyone from counter-culturalists to Marilyn Monroe to jump on the trend.
Leather jackets appeared slightly later. Originally fur lined and used by World War I pilots to keep warm during flights, they rose in popularity thanks to 1950s cinema. Marlon Brando sported a leather jacket in his 1953 film The Wild One, meaning that by the ‘60s, it wasn’t only Harley-Davidson motorcyclists wearing the jackets, but movie and rock ‘n’ roll stars like Steve McQueen and The Beatles.
Interestingly, we also found that most people surveyed have passed down an item of clothing to the next generation (66%) and have worn clothes belonging to their family members (73%). Women were more likely to have passed down an item of clothing (71% compared to 60% of men) and to have worn their family’s clothes (78% compared to 65%).
If you are looking to build up a capsule wardrobe, be sure to check out our denim jackets, leather jackets and fashion accessories. Or if you are in need of something dressier for a special occasion, our black cut-out dresses and red carpet dresses have you covered.
Methodology:
We cross-referenced information from online publications and journals. Through this approach, we compiled a dataset consisting of 50 distinct occasions where celebrity family members were observed wearing each other’s clothing.
We have also highlighted occasions where celebrities have re-worn their own clothes and passed on their clothing to other celebrities. For each occasion, we analysed the year the clothing was originally worn, the year it was re-worn and how many years had passed.
Additionally, to measure people’s attitudes to sharing and re-wearing clothes, we ran a 500-respondent OnePulse survey with parents over the age of 35 and collected social media hashtags from Instagram and TikTok.
About Victoria Copley
Victoria Copley has written 6 posts in this blog.