The professional kitchen is one of the thresholds fashion finds it hard to cross. A head chef might get initials sweetly embroidered on the breast pocket, or swap Crocs for those jewel-encrusted versions by Christopher Kane for SS17. But the greatest sartorial concern is that it can all be boil-washed.
A chefs’ kitchen is an environment that has traditionally been inimical, and indifferent, to fashion — an unseen, troglodyte affair in the basement. Not any more. The open kitchen is the place where modern restaurants show off their energy and their sass. And for the latest cohort of young female chefs, sommeliers and restaurateurs, the fashion fightback has begun. “I thought ‘Finally, there is something’,” says Olia Hercules, the chef and food writer, of the moment when she first saw the Polka Pants high-waist chefs’ trousers that she now wears “all the time”, in and out of the kitchen. Hercules, who wooed the fooderati with tales and recipes from her native Ukraine in Mamushka, to be followed this year by her second book Kaukasi, has worked as both a professional and private chef. “The chefs’ jackets are fine,” she says, “but the trousers were always really uncomfortable and tight, with elastic bands digging around the hips. Chefs pants also drag around and you end up sweeping the kitchen floor.” Polka Pants (from £50, polkapants.com) are defiantly figure-fitting, but with an extra-high waist that is both flattering and practical, and a shorter leg to show off socks and shoes. Their designer, Maxine Thompson, launched the label from London last year, and has just released a capsule collection with new designs in white, named for the 19th-century high-society French chef Marie-Antoine Carême. But her original inspiration was much more down to earth: “We were looking at the 1940s, when women had to go to work when men went to war, and referenced that utilitarian style.” Made in east London, the Polka Pants are cut from a sturdy cotton with 3 per cent stretch, finished with eyelets, belt loops (for tucking in dishcloths), and double stitching on the seams and crotch: “They withstand the strain of a good 80-hour week,” Thompson says. As a chef naturally doesn’t want to “hook yourself on sharp things” in the kitchen, the close fit and side zip are as much safety feature as fashion reference to the no-nonsense Land Girl look. The super-high waist also avoids unwanted attention: “An executive chef used to put a spoon down [the back of trousers] any time he saw someone’s bum crack when they bent over,” Thompson recalls. Australian-born, Thompson moved to New York where she worked for Chanel as a business analyst before enrolling at the French Culinary Institute. She progressed to professional cheffing, moved to London and quickly discovered the fashion chasm: “liking clothes and caring what I look like, I thought, this is ridiculous — I would try wearing high-street trousers, but scrubbing a stove I’d end up with cheap dye all over myself. Having a fashion background, I thought maybe I can make my own.” About half of her orders come from the US, where the Carême collection is aimed: “[American chefs] have to cook in all white; they are a little stricter. We’re going to do seasonal collections and limited editions; I made a sommelier friend a bright red pair.” Jason Lurie and Lindy Kursten, meanwhile, have found their fashion focused more directly on the dining room floor. Their company Jalin Design made the capsule collection for the staff of Mayfair glamour-pot Park Chinois, a Chinese-art-deco-meets-Gatsby-style fantasy, with live music. “We took inspiration from a wide variety of sources, ranging from Janelle Monáe and Marlene Dietrich, to 1990s Helmut Lang tailoring,” the duo say. “Designs were manufactured in luxury wools and silks with no expense spared. Bespoke Chinoiserie prints were used for silk gazar corset dresses. Rich ivory wools for shawl-lapel tuxedo jackets and waistcoats. And each garment was made to measure so the fit was perfect.”
When a restaurant’s wait staff uniform goes unnoticed, which is most of the time, it’s largely because it conforms itself to the hipster uniform of cotton/denim shirt, jeans, oilcloth apron and a light tattoo or beard. Heads have turned, however, in a few notable examples. At Chiltern Firehouse, the Marylebone hotel-restaurant, the glamour level is set scorchingly high at reception, where leggy wait staff greet diners in Emilia Wickstead crepe jumpsuits in fetching deep pastel hues. And although the fashion verdict was biting when wait staff at Spring restaurant, Skye Gyngell’s elegant dining room at Somerset House, first debuted their cotton canvas dresses by Egg Trading, which from the wrong angle looked like tents without enough poles to reveal their true shape, the designs have since become a part of the restaurant’s signature. The same applies to Street XO, the new subterranean Mayfair restaurant where diners are served a twist on high-end street food by staff buckled into “straight jackets” — a nod to the craziness of its cuisine. On a more practical level, the founders of the Taiwanese steamed bun emporia Bao drew on their art-school background when approaching the look of the staff. “Creating an ambience is always the most fun thing to imagine and do,” says co-founder Erchen Chang. “Every little detail we design really matters.” The Bao uniform, she notes, “took off from the Chinese workers café style; something comfortable to work in but really stylish as well. Only Hong Kong does the style really well; if you go to a cha chaan teng type of corner café, almost like a greasy spoon, they all wear a jacket and shirt: we loved that style for the way it combines utility and simplicity.” The Bao jacket (£55, baolondon.com) with its simple embroidery and three useful pockets has proven so popular among its customers they now sell them through their online store. Jackets may be unisex, but the Polka Pants remain a female chef’s privilege. “I’ve had a lot of men approaching us,” Thompson says, “but I think Polka Pants has grown into a community and support network for women. If I was then to make male ones it would contradict everything I stand for.”
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