In Fashion, Smoking is Still for the Hot and Cool

LONDON — In fashion, smoking is the one vice that’s outlived all the others — and there’s still a burning desire for it.

For the fashion crowd, many see a lit cigarette, rather than a vape, as a signal of chic. Tobacco, like the color black, has managed to stay in vogue despite all its health risks and dangers.

Celine sells lighter cases made from sterling silver and lizard leather for $870, and its Nightclubbing scent has bottled the act of smoking. The brand describes it as a “perfume…with accents of nicotine…somewhere between the scent of crimson velvet seats and the sensuality of the nape of a neck, fragrant with vanilla.”

On the runways, smoking still has a strong allure. At the fall 2024 shows, Christian Cowan and LaQuan Smith sent models down the runway with cigarettes in hand — with some of them even taking a drag.

David Koma collaborated with jeweler Emily Frances Barrett for fall 2023 on creating cigarette butt earrings and necklaces, while the 80-year-old, Yohji Yamamoto fills any room he’s in with a cloud of smoke.

The examples don’t end there, and over the years have included cigars on the Chanel resort 2017 runway in Havana, Cuba; Kate Moss closing Louis Vuitton’s fall 2011 show holding a cigarette while wearing black gloves, and Lady Gaga walking in the Mugler fall 2011 show sucking on a cigarette.

Even the rising wellness industry seems to be unable to dent the glamour and power a cigarette can radiate in some circles.

“Every once in a while, when the occasion arises, it’s fun to misbehave and be a little wayward with a post-dinner cigarette. And when you’re hosting within your own four walls, the rules can be a little flexed,” said fine jewelry designer Jessica McCormack, who hosted an intimate dinner during Frieze week in London, where guests took occasional cigarette breaks in the little garden.

At the dinner there were wooden boxes filled with cigarettes and a menu that featured McCormack’s quirky illustrations of a barefoot, Wife of Bath-style character riding a donkey — and smoking a cigarette. The tables were strewn with matchbooks with the same illustration.

Fellow jeweler Solange Azagury-Partridge also has a penchant for smoking, and cigarette paraphernalia. She recently collaborated with the New York-based brand Edie Parker, a design brand that specializes smoking accessories, on a silver Hotlips clutch with a built-in lighter, priced at 840 pounds.

Of course, brands and designers have been playing with smoke for decades — stretching back to when cigarettes were an accepted part of society, even in restaurants and on airplanes. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was often photographed with a cigarette in her hand, while Yves Saint Laurent introduced the “Le Smoking” suits in 1966.

That same year Helmut Newton photographed the designer alongside the model Vibeke Knudsen, who was holding a cigarette in her hand. Since then, designers haven’t let smoking deaths — or death warnings on cigarette packets — get in the way of their image-making.

Clearly, smoking is a habit that’s hard to kick in some respects, for Britain‘s new government, and for the fashion crowd.

The former can’t resist the allure of a tobacco and vaping tax, while the latter has fallen back in love with look, sensations and aesthetics of smoking.

The Labour government has quietly shelved a previously mooted ban on smoking in outdoor spaces such as pub gardens, restaurant terraces, university campuses and even on pavements.

It’s doubtful the planned tax increases will urge anyone to change their minds about smoking.

When Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer took office, he was vehemently anti-smoking, but quickly changed his mind after pushback from the hospitality industry, and the promise of tax receipts from cigarette lovers and vapers alike.

In the latest government budget, announced on Oct. 30, the government upped the tax on tobacco by 2 percent, and by 10 percent for hand-rolled tobacco. Meanwhile, each 10-ml. dose of e-cigarette liquid will cost 2.20 pounds more from October 2026.

“Psychologically, when governments impose strict bans on behaviours, people often rebel to regain their perceived lost autonomy. The act of smoking, already imbued with an aura of rebellion, can become even more appealing under a ban, as it heightens its association with defiance and nonconformity,” said Carolyn Mair, a chartered psychologist, fashion business consultant and author of “The Psychology of Fashion.”

Fashion isn’t the only creative industry still tapping into the cigarette’s allure: The film industry also still has a love affair with them. Its hottest stars are smoking on and off screen: Drew Starkey in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer”; Paul Mescal on the set of “Gladiator II,” and both Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist’s characters in “Challengers.”

The Instagram account @Cigfluencers has become a shrine to the art of smoking with 58,000 followers. The page describes itself as “hot people keeping the art of smoking and being cool alive,” and features famous people smoking in paparazzi shots, magazine editorials, music videos and film scenes.

“For those in fashion and entertainment, smoking often holds a symbolic allure, tied to aesthetic values of glamour, edginess, and sophistication,” Mair said.

“Within the context of these industries, smoking might also serve as a psychological escape from the high-pressure environments and allow individuals to network and bond in informal settings. In an industry where thinness is highly valued, cigarettes might be used as appetite-suppressants,” she adds.

According to Smokefree Media, an organization that tracks smoking on the big screen, more than 30 films released this year feature smoking.

The standouts in the report include “The Bikeriders,” a film about a midwestern motorcycle club, where 234 tobacco incidents were recorded, and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” an action film based on British Prime Minister Winston Churchill with 233 counts of smoking.

The Amy Winehouse biopic “Back to Black” featured 94 tobacco incidents and Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” had 62 incidents.

The Smokefree Media report doesn’t take television series into account. There are multiple scenes of cigarettes being smoked in Ryan Murphy’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” and HBO’s “Industry.”

According to another report from STOP, otherwise known as the Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products, the Netflix documentary series “Drive to Survive” had an estimated of more than 1 billion minutes of tobacco-related footage.

Fashion and film are persisting even as Big Tobacco switches its attention to vaping, which it sees as a healthier — but still lucrative — alternative.

“The global cigarette market has experienced a steady decline in volumes over recent decades. Here in the U.K., that’s evidenced by a steep decline in smoking prevalence since 2011,” said a spokesperson for Philip Morris International, the owner behind cigarette brands such as Marlboro and L&M.

“We are building our future on replacing cigarettes with smoke-free products that — while addictive and not risk-free — are a better alternative for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke,” he added.

But vapes are noticeably absent, from the runways, fashion photographs and parties. And there’s a reason for that. They’re a halfway house for smokers trying to quit, and the opposite of chic. It’s unlikely that any designer will be calling a future design “Le Vaping,” or aspiring to cool by sucking on one for a portrait.