Would YOU let your children dress you?
CHARLOTTE KEMP tried it — with enchanting (if not always practical!) results . . .
WHETHER I’ve thrown on my s cruffi est clothes to walk the dog or spent an hour trying on dresses for a night out, nothing I wear escapes the sartorial scrutiny of my three daughters. I’ve lost count of the number of times my youngest, Martha, five, has rolled her eyes at my outfits.
‘You can’t go out in those — they look like pyjamas,’ was her withering critique of this summer’s lounge pants.
And once, she refused point blank to get out of the car at the school gates because I was wearing my tatty old gym kit. I had to send her in with a friend.
My ten-year-old daughter, Bea, meanwhile, likes everything to be perfectly colour co-ordinated. She will often pop her head round my bedroom door when I’m getting ready and pull a face as she casts her eyes down to my shoes.
‘They really don’t go, Mummy. Why don’t you try the brown ones,’ she’ll suggest. Her eye for colour — combined with a kooky sense of style — means she’s rarely wrong, and I increasingly value her opinion. She’s certainly my first port of call for those ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ moments.
Perhaps knowing what’s good for him, I can never get an honest answer from my husband, Tom.
But if something’s too tight, too short or just plain doesn’t suit me, I can count on Bea to tell me straight.
Amelia, 13, is more diplomatic. We recently sorted through a pile of my old clothes that had been f estering in the attic, and when I suggested she might like to wear a boho floral skirt I’ve had since university days, she politely turned it down, later admitting she thought it looked like a pair of curtains.
SHE’S doing a great job of steering me away from garish patterns in general — but that’s often because she has a hidden agenda. Now she’s a teenager and pretty much the same height as me, she often persuades me to buy things in the hope they will end up in her wardrobe.
Thankfully, unlike many teenagers, she’s not designer-label obsessed or it would cost me a fortune. In fact she’s a natural bargain-hunter and will talk me out of expensive purchases if she’s spotted something j ust as nice i n Penneys or H&M.
Having said that, I’ve noticed she’s taken a liking to a few things I’ve bought recently — a rather cool grey jumper mysteriously ended up in her wardrobe after I put it in the wash, and she’s asked if she can ‘borrow’ a pair of jeans for a trip.
She’s also snaffled my Ugg boots to wear with cut-off denim shorts.
The galling thing is they look far nicer on her gazelle-like legs — but I’m very happy to share.
So what would my trio of burgeoning stylists choose for me to wear if I gave them the chance? I asked them to dress me for the day to find out . . .