STYLE SWITCH

Sarah-Kate reviews her rules from top to bottom

I’m not a person who can leave the house wearing track pants and fluffy slippers. I have standards and I can’t seem to abandon them even if wanted to. In my opinion, gym gear is for the gym or a quick dash into the post office – the supermarket at a pinch, if and only if you are on your way to or from the gym at the time.

I was horrified to go to a café recently and have a young woman in leggings, gym shoes and a hoodie take the salt and pepper off my table. I was just about to complain to the management about such rudeness from another customer when I realised she was the management.

Dressed like that? I don’t think so. If you’re going to charge me $4.50 for a coffee, you can wear something that doesn’t involve camel toe and visible panty line, thank you very much!

I like clothes to be fit for purpose. I like colours to match, accessories to blend and scarves to give it all a little pizzazz. It’s called effort and I don’t care if no-one else notices, but I do. Which is why it hurts so badly when I get it wrong myself.

Being forced into roundthe-clock Birkenstocks while my poor damaged toenails grow back has been something of a struggle, but I’ve worked with it by at least planning outfits that suit. The other day, though, I was running late and didn’t pay proper attention before leaving the house.

I went to the mall to run a few errands and while passing through Farmers on my way back to the car, I caught sight of a frumpy old woman.

“Congratulations on not letting yourself go to that extent,” I thought smugly to myself, only to find the frumpy old woman following me wherever I went. In the mirror. Because sadly, that frumpy old woman was me. Oh, dear.

Everything was wrong.com from the German Jesus boots on upwards. I had disregarded one of my own steadfast rules – if you go baggy on the bottom, do not go baggy on the top and vice versa. So you can wear floaty trousers, but not with a voluminous top. The top must be fitted. And you can wear the voluminous top, but only with skinny-legged pants or capris.

Two lots of tight make a woman of a certain vintage look like a saveloy. Two lots of voluminous make her look, well, voluminous, which was where I had gone wrong, although somehow I’d also managed a bit of see-through as well. Eww.

Luckily for me, Farmers was having a sale, so despite currently being in fiscal lockdown, I took straight to the racks and remedied the situation, spending as little as I possibly could, and thus allowing the frumpy old woman who was insisting on accompanying me everywhere to significantly smarten up her act.

So you don’t get natural fibres when you pay only $30 for a top, but I’d rather be a tiny bit clammy than a whole lot of sheer and voluminous. Besides, that’s what deodorant is for.