What the best-dressed women in the world are wearing
ATRuTH rarely spoken among women who work in fashion is that we’re equally interested in studying each other’s clothes as the ones being paraded on the catwalk.
A second truth: while dolled-up, twentysomething bloggers and over-made up celebrities are the ones photographers jostle to snap, the really interesting ones are the forty and fifty-something women watching from the front rows. These are the people whose personal decisions shape what fashion looks like, whether on the pages of magazines, or in the stores and websites they buy for.
Not only do these women call the shots but they have also had to pick outfits to get them through an 8am-to-midnight job, which takes them across the fashion capitals of the world for four weeks on the trot. Instructive, then, to see what’s made the cut and how they’re wearing it.
In Milan, the third leg of the season, fashion’s grown-ups were carrying on as if it were still summer. Floral tea dresses, midi-skirts and open-toed sandals wafted everywhere, in astonishing variety.
I passed Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman on the way to the MaxMara show wearing exactly that, while across the road, I spotted Sarah Rutson, head buyer for online retailer Net-a-Porter, whipping off into the distance in a whirl of rose-patterned chiffon.
No doubt about it; if you’ve got a couple of floral dresses in your wardrobe, they’ll be an investment for next summer, as well as to layer up now with jumpers and boots. If you haven’t, try Topshop’s rose print midi dress, £46. THE
art of show season survival, while looking elegant and sane, is keeping it simple, as far as Ruth Chapman of the hugely successful site
matchesfashion.com sees it. There is no room for faffing around in the morning when you are leaving home in Wimbledon at 6.30am as she does.
Chapman is an advocate for soft tailoring, a trouser and shirt woman, who makes her fashion statements with shoes and a decorative coat — the sort of flair that sets her apart from a banker or lawyer. She was on the plane to Milan in a navy satin blouse and ever- so- slightly Seventies trousers, a lightweight leopardspot coat over her shoulders.
The coat comes from Matches own Raey collection, which Ruth started when she couldn’t find anything on the whole of planet fashion to plug the wardrobe gaps she and her peer group of customers couldn’t fill.
That’s why the consensus dressing decisions of these women are so instructive — they handle clothes all the time for a living so they know with a higher-than-average certainty which things will fit, function, and not make them feel like trussed-up idiots.
As every style pro knows; there’s no use cramming yourself into a fashion that militates against your shape.
At the Christopher Kane show in London beanpole Eva Herzigova (relieved to be past her Wonderbra days) wore a black trouser suit with a frilled neckline while sitting next to tiny Salma Hayek, whose generous Latin frontage and tiny waist can only ever look at home in a fitted dress.
This season’s full-skirted silhouettes are ideal for a curvy woman. Know and Like Thyself is a fashion professional’s motto. But then again, daring does come into it, too.
I’m glad I went against my usual instincts (which urge me to run when faced with a full skirt) and splurged on a long, silver lame, fan-pleated skirt in the summer. Seemed like onewear, evening-attire madness at the time, but now they are everywhere at the shows — being worn during the day. Watching the fashion pros at work has demonstrated how this feat is pulled off. What you need is a khaki military jacket, something between an oversized shirt and a parka.
Try M&S’s satin parka (£99) from their Autograph range, and go to asos.com for the TFNC metallic midi skirt, £45.
Dressing down evening wear for day might seem like a wild eccentricity, but actually has sound economics behind it.
In hard financial times, it’s a way of making the wardrobe you already have do extra duty. That’s what I’ve picked up from being in the company of so many intelligently dressed women whose style I admire. Just can’t wait to get home and pull on my khaki coat and glitter- strewn top for the next leg, Paris.