“What is so fun is that I see kids, I see grownups, I see all these different generations wearing these sporty clothes and I do think, well, I had a hand in that,” Chisholm tells me over Zoom, fresh off a tour that just wrapped in Australia. “Now I wish I’d kept more of those clothes, but the things I’ve kept I still rewear and I’ve found myself even rebuying some of the pieces I had back in the day.” She starts laughing. “Look, I’m sitting here wearing Adidas poppers!” She lifts up her leg to show off a pair of the classic snap-off pants in a bold shade of red.
“Wannabe,” where it all began.
If you were a teenager in 1997 with access to the The Box TV channel, then you’ll likely remember being absolutely enthralled by the Spice Girls’s debut music video for “Wannabe,” which quickly established each one of the girls’ personalities through their wildly distinctive clothes. There was Geri in a sequined leotard worn over black tights (“she was always in some kooky outfit she’d picked up at a thrift store”); Emma in a white shift dress with matching platform sandal mules; Victoria in a little black body-con dress and elegant ankle-strap chunky heels; Mel B in a lime green tank top and black and green shiny pants and steel-toed boots; and Chisholm in bright blue Adidas track pants with neon green stripes, a shiny orange spandex halter top, and trainers—all of which came straight from her own closet. “At the beginning it was all of our wardrobes, we didn’t have any money to go out and buy things, and we didn’t even have a relationship with a stylist,” she says.
Their looks stood out because at the time—and even now—pop groups always opted for matching or coordinating outfits. “We tried a lot of stuff with the original management but there was always someone that felt and looked uncomfortable,” she recalls. “If we had a nice little dress on, then I’d feel really out of place, and then if we were all a little bit sporty or casual then Victoria just didn’t feel dressed-up enough.” It was Geri that brought forth the idea that everyone simply come as they are. “I remember it so vividly, we used to rehearse in a church hall—this is when we first got together way back in 1994 and were looking in the mirror one day and Geri said, ‘why don’t we just dress as we do?’” The rest, as they say, is history.
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