A plain black crew neck tee. High waisted light wash jeans, ripped across both knees, cuffed once at the ankle. A small black crossbody on a thin strap. A watch and a few bracelets on one wrist. That is the entire outfit, and in a square holding a couple of hundred people at dusk she is the most pulled together person in the frame. Nobody around her is wearing anything more expensive than she is.

Walk any Mediterranean seafront between June and September and you will see the same three-item outfit repeating on a loop: cutoff denim shorts, a swim top worn as a top, and a rubber thong sandal. It is one of the most stable outfit formulas in consumer retail, it costs almost nothing to assemble, and each of the three slots is contested by a completely different set of brands. The denim slot is the one with the clearest hierarchy.