Much has been made of Hailey Bieber’s and husband Justin Bieber’s divergent styles. Lest we forget all the discourse that collected around the launch of Rhode’s strawberry glaze lip treatment, for which she wore a little red dress with strappy stilettos and he wore Crocs. People duly started tweeting about the ways in which their outfits were symptomatic of the aesthetic pressures put on women versus men.
But their clothes could be unpacked in another direction: one that suggests Justin Bieber likes wearing bedraggled items just as much as his wife enjoys looking pristine. To be photographed in tracksuit bottoms—“I resist the standards expected of celebrities”—is a power move equal to being photographed in a sheath minidress—“I am the standard”—accessorized with a Bottega Veneta handbag.
The most straightforward framework to understand all of this: Justin Bieber is the comfortable grandad slipper to Hailey Bieber’s satin Miu Miu ballet pump. The couple wore both of those items while strolling hand-in-hand through Beverly Hills on Monday, October 16. She was in a pleated micro-skirt (of course) with a Frank Sinatra tour T-shirt and Saint Laurent Manhattan bag, and he was in a Saint Laurent track jacket with a backwards cap.
This article first appeared on British Vogue.
