Dressing like ABBA doesn’t have to be a costume party. It can simply be a celebration of great clothes.
Dressing like ABBA is easy. You just wear clothes that suggest the very best of everyday mid seventies to early eighties high street fashion. Dressing like ABBA means feeling comfortably adult and at ease in your skin, so always dress to suit your mood, not other people’s expectations.
Here’s how to dress like ABBA all through the year
Your Spring and Autumn wardrobe includes but is not limited to: hand-knit shawls, tight white cords, denim culottes, midi-skirts, roll-neck jumpers, and leather boots in every length from ankle to thigh.
When winter comes, remember: there is no bad weather, only bad clothes! Spend the coldest months wrapped in something that will keep you as warm, dry and cosy as snuggly, durable fur would. (If you find such a wonder-textile, please let me know what it is.) If your coat is good enough, you won’t need to bulk up with layer upon layer of clothing underneath, but can instead enjoy looking chic and tailored, as ABBA are doing in the illustration above. Fend off chapped lips with a reliable balm and a slick of lip-oil to add gloss, and keep the low winter sun out with Aviators. Sunglasses can make the wearer look a bit aloof and distant: why not try pulling your Aviators down the bridge of your nose a little so that you can wink at your current swain, or passing handsome strangers? This will lend a little Anni-Frid sex-appeal to your look.
In the Summer, your collection of cotton and linen comes into its own: plain white, colourfully embroidered, Broderie Anglaise … all kinds of dresses, petticoats, blouses, and camisole tops are there to be mixed, matched and layered in any combination that appeals.
ABBA footwear options include clogs, stack or platform heels, and espadrilles (preferably wedge heeled with ankle ties). Swedish Hasbeens make super comfortable clogs (I own ankle boots and sandals by them, and am keeping my eyes peeled for a pair of Husbands at an affordable price).
ABBA wouldn’t look like ABBA without boots. Short boots, long boots, boots in suede, boots in leather, boots in snakeskin, boots in any and every colour, boots with trousers, booots with midi-skirts, and boots with mini-kimonos. Boots with everything! My very favourite boots with ABBA realness are made by Terry de Havilland – click here to shop and here to read what I’ve previously written about this brand.
Jewellery is simple and minimal: fine chains in gold or silver, and maybe some turquoise, topaz, tiger’s eye or smokey quartz stones. For authentically Scandinavian chic, I think Georg Jensen is unbeatable.
What ABBA wore under their clothes remains happily undocumented. Sloggi briefs or silk and lace? Either would be feasible choices for an ABBA look; nothing at all would be fine too. But leave your Miss Mary of Sweden girdles in the drawer if you want to look like ABBA: the ABBA look is not stiff or corseted.
ABBA love workwear, on-stage and off, especially if it comes in the form of an an all-in-one.
In jumpsuits and boiler suits (regardless of colour or weight) ABBA collectively give the impression that they could crew the motor-room of a roll-on-roll-off ferry at a moment’s notice.
Dance wear is also workwear. Dressing like ABBA is a wonderful way to justify hours browsing in dance outfitters choosing unitards, leotards, tights and leg warmers. You don’t have to wear them all at once, although you can if you want to, and you don’t have to exercise in them either. I’ve spent many a happy hour in a leotard and tracksuit bottoms, stuffing sausage rolls from Gregg the Bakers and watching the telly. A genre is a suggestion, not an instruction.
Stage wear is a sub-division of workwear.
Who cares that you can’t sing a note, and haven’t set foot on a stage since the primary school nativity play? I’m always surprised when people part with, or pass up show-stopping garments on the grounds that they don’t have an occasion to wear them. I think you should just seek out an appropriate occasion, host one yourself, or – my favourite option – just wear that elaborate 15 foot tulle train/intricate pair of shoes/elaborately wrought tiara around the house and maybe out to the shops, if you can’t be bothered to change. So I can’t stress this highly enough: if you can get your mitts on some spectacular pieces of clobber you like, wear them!
ABBA’s stage clothes were designed by Owe Sandström – if you skipped that link, go back and hit it, because he has the BEST WIKI-BIOG EVER. I would sell my soul for a career history as rich and interesting as Owe’s.
I would love to have an Owe Sandström original in my wardrobe. Whilst in no way detracting from the qualities of Agnetha’s physique that led to her winning ‘Rear of the Year [in perpetuity imo]’, I am pretty certain that Owe had a hand in her victory. Watch the Waterloo video and marvel at the way Owe has fitted Agnetha’s high-waisted blue satin knickerbockers over her bottom and snugly into the small of her back, and you’ll see what I mean. Owe sent ABBA onstage in capes and catsuits that would have won the approval of Edna Mole, and he appears to have been as fond of a micro-mini as I am. Not only does he hem a skirt to gusset length with exactitude, he quite often then adds a side split to hip or waist to make moving around in it even easier. Owe is a genius and a liberator of womankind.
I have hopes that Owe might come out of retirement and do an affordable micro-collection in celebration of ABBA Voyage, and maybe if you join me in wishing hard for that, we can manifest it. In the meantime, we can get our hands on a version of one of the most iconic pieces of ABBA stage wear here – those ABBA cats! They really deserve the #FelineFine hashtag, as does Marc McGreevy’s exuberant and gorgeous illustration above! The cat illustrations are Owe Sandström’s work. I like the cats as a t-shirt and as a mini dress, as homeware and as charms – in fact, if money were no option, I’d quite like to commission a bathroom fully tiled and wallpapered with ABBA cats. I can’t imagine ever growing tired of them.
I think that’s my criterion for deciding if – as the Shangri-Las might put it: “I’m in love L-U-V!”
Love is very sustainable.
People, clothes, art, music … we might from time to time need a little break to refresh ourselves, but we don’t grow tired of art or people that we truly find affinity with.
This post was inspired by the wonderful illustrations of Owe Sandström in 1974 (Cats) and Marc Mcgreevy in 2021 (ABBA)
The two illustrations in this post are the work of Marc McGreevy and the copyright is his.
Click the links for Marc McGreevy’s website and instagram
Click here for the instagram of ABBA The Museum
