Tablecloth Dressing Is Summer's Most Home-Spun Boho Trend | British Vogue
Fashion and interiors have long borrowed from one another, but this season’s exchange feels especially literal. Table linens, the homey staples once reserved for Sunday roasts and summer picnics, have made their way out of our dining rooms and into our wardrobes. The recent boho revival, for which we have Chemena Kamali’s Chloé to thank, means lace trims, chintz florals, gingham checks and broderie anglaise are no longer just the stuff of teatime nostalgia. These domestic motifs are turning up on floaty maxi skirts, milkmaid blouses and sun-faded prairie dresses. Whether upcycled from vintage pieces or newly designed to mimic a certain homespun charm, tablecloths are the unexpected muse of the season.
And while you might think all of this sounds a tad twee, the fashion set is proving that, when styled with intention, a tablecloth-inspired flourish can add just the right amount of tactility to your summer wardrobe. Key inspiration comes from our favourite boho muses, Sienna Miller, Pixie Geldof and Alexa Chung, who have all embraced quaint little hems and tablecloth-inspired touches in their everyday looks. Meanwhile, the street-style set are pairing these dainty details with more rugged staples – think fisherman vests over broderie anglaise blouses, or napkin-inspired camis worn with jorts and biker boots. It’s proof that you, too, can channel the new boho mood without veering into full Laura Ashley territory.
Sienna Miller at the Chloé autumn/winter 2025 show.
Jacopo Raule/Getty ImagesA street-styler at Copenhagen Fashion Week.
Edward Berthelot/Getty ImagesBuzzy independent brands are also proving that upcycling humble home fabrics has well and truly shed its make-do-and-mend connotations. Rave Review, a favourite of Doechii’s, recently shortlisted for the LVMH Prize, creates all its looks from vintage textiles sourced from flea markets across Sweden. For spring/summer 2025, the brand’s designers Livia Schück and Josephine Bergqvist took us to the rustic Swedish countryside, reworking ginghams and floral linens into patchwork shirts, asymmetrical tops and voluminous skirts. “Table linens are usually a bit thicker and have been washed a lot, which gives them that perfect worn-in feel, which we love,” says Schück. “They are also recognisable as objects of the home, which really enhances the fact that the garment is upcycled and unique.” Standout pieces from the collection include sheer skirts trimmed with salvaged tablecloth hems that create a delicately frayed fringe.
Something of an upcycling expert, Ellen Hodakova Larsson’s repurposed red-and-white checked and monogrammed dishcloths for Hodakova’s spring/summer 2025 show. “I find so much comfort in going back in memories… and my memories are in objects, so it’s more about smells, images, pieces – all of the physical things,” she told Vogue Runway, following her show in Paris. The 2024 LVMH Prize winner breathes new life into humble household fabrics, re-contextualising their meaning in a way that feels both intimate and experimental. The celebrity-loved brand, worn by the likes of Tilda Swinton, Lady Gaga, Emma Corrin and Saoirse Ronan, is an example of how upcycling is slowly infiltrating the mainstream – one terrycloth at a time.
Hodakova spring/summer 2025.
Courtesy of HodakovaRave Review spring/summer 2025.
Daniele Oberrauch / Gorunway.comBritish designer Freya Simonne takes a similarly sentimental approach. Her made-to-order occasion wear uses exclusively vintage textiles, many of them table linens she scours the internet for. “I’m a very nostalgic person. I often think about the stories behind each fabric and what they’ve already seen,” she tells Vogue. “I love being able to give these pieces another life.” Her best-sellers include milkmaid dresses made from cross-stitch floral linens and bridalwear crafted from antique cutwork Madeira cloth – garments made not only to be worn, but cherished.
The tablecloth trend isn’t confined to those working solely on a smaller scale. Cult brands like Ganni, Dôen and Damson Madder also borrow heavily from household motifs for their extensive offering of prairie dresses, flouncy skirts and oversized collar shirts. “The family linen cupboard is often where we start the design process,” says Damson Madder founder Emma Hill. “The patterns, trims and fabrics of treasured homeware pieces translate so well onto clothing because they are made to last.” The brand even launched its first homeware collection at the end of 2024, which features aprons, oven mitts, napkins and placemats spliced from the same brightly-hued fabrics as its ready-to-wear collection.
So, whether it’s a frilled collar that looks like it was lifted from a picnic blanket or a prairie skirt made from a repurposed tablecloth, this summer, lean into fabrics and finishes that feel like a little nod to the past. As Simonne puts it, “the nostalgia behind fabrics enriches the final design and that’s what we need to be working towards. Buying pieces that we truly love because they tell a story.”
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