Are two-piece matching sets still trendy? I wanted to find one for a casual summer event, but then I wondered if that look had passed its prime. — Yael, Bronx, N.Y.
The coordinated “set,” known more colloquially as the co-ord set, that perfectly matching combination of top and bottom, has been part of the standard wardrobe for decades. What, after all, is a suit but a set with different vowels? It has, however, taken many forms over the years and ebbed and flowed in the public consciousness.
The last time sets really became a thing was in the fall of 2021, after the Miu Miu show during Paris Fashion Week. That’s when Miuccia Prada showed matching khaki or gray pleated micro-miniskirts and cropped jacket tops or cable knits, like a (yes) suit gone Britney Spears rogue.
Before you could say “social media catnip,” the Miu Miu set had gone stratospheric, worn by Nicole Kidman on the cover of Vanity Fair as well as influencers by the truckload, reinforcing Mrs. Prada’s position as the most powerful female designer in fashion.
It was not, however, the first set, and it certainly won’t be the last. The Juicy Couture tracksuit, beloved of Los Angeles denizens and celebrities everywhere in the early aughts, was a set. The fact that the aughts are currently enjoying a style renaissance, along with the whole set concept, is probably not a coincidence. Before that, Cher Horowitz’s yellow plaid suit in “Clueless” was a set.
The playsuit that rose to popularity in the 1960s was a set. In the 1920s, Coco Chanel loved a knit set, a coordinated cardigan and skirt inspired by clothing worn to play tennis and golf. Some historians trace the origins of the set back even further, to the 16th and 17th centuries, when men started wearing matching doublets and hose.
As to why the set concept lasted so long, it’s pretty simple. As the stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson told me when I asked, “it makes life easier.”
You don’t have to worry about coordinating your clothes because they are already coordinated. It makes you look pulled together with pretty much zero effort. And it makes packing simpler because each look is essentially three or more in one since you can wear the top and bottom together or apart.
One drawback to the concept, Ms. Karefa-Johnson said, is that it can become a crutch of sorts, a way of ceding responsibility in the morning that can atrophy the taste muscle. And since dressing is in part about showing others who you are as an individual, it can act more like camouflage than self-expression.
Samira Nasr, the editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, said she tended to stay away from sets because she preferred looking “as though something is a little off” and giving her clothes an idiosyncrasy that is uniquely hers. And judging by recent debuts of new designers at big brands, like Michael Rider at Celine, with its mismatched classics, that kind of idiosyncrasy may be on the rise.
But here’s the thing about sets: You can always disaggregate the pieces and turn them into separates — you can always mix and unmatch them — and then re-aggregate according to taste. In that light, investing in a set is not being trendy. It’s being smart.
Your Style Questions, Answered
Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or X. Questions are edited and condensed.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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