Louisa Jacobson Endorses the Cummerbund

Step aside, leather belts. The cummerbund is the coolest waist-cinching accessory this season. Just ask Louisa Jacobson.

At the season four premiere of HBO’s The Gilded Age, the actor and eternally stylish daughter of Meryl Streep wore a look from Conner Ives’s spring 2027 collection that put the old-world accessory on full display. Her cropped bolero jacket featured a regal high collar, while her tailored trousers were embellished with a burgundy torso-hugging sash. All in all, to promote a television series set in the late 1800s, the historically rich garment is an apt choice.

With roots in Persia, South Asia, and the Middle East, the cummerbund is said to have been brought to Victorian England by British military officers who had been stationed in colonial India. It became a reigning eveningwear trend, eventually replacing traditional waistcoats. After long being associated with old-guard severity, it’s now getting the au courant treatment on the runway. In Ives’s most recent collection, it was a recurring motif, featured alongside everything from tailored black suits to satin pink polka-dot pants.

And while Jacobson’s premiere look may have nodded to Gilded Age fashion, the cummerbund is trending outside the realm of 19th-century period dressing. Beyond Conner Ives’s design, it was spotted on the spring 2027 runways of TWP, Kallmeyer, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Valentino, to name a few. Less structured than the traditional buckled belt and more formal than the hip-adorning scarf, the cummerbund is sure to soon find its way onto the waistlines of It girls far and wide. After all, sometimes the best accessories are borrowed from the boys.