‘When we dress ourselves, we express ourselves’
Struggling with the WFH style vibes? Dedicated homedresser Polly Vernon has some advice…
NINE YEARS AGO, I gave up a full-time office job on a newspaper to be a freelance writer. Give or take the time I (more usually) spend in Grazia – Mondays, up until half four or so, by which time I generally finish my column, then swish off into the late afternoon like the grand diva I deep down so wish I was – working from home is all I’ve known for a long, long time. I gotta say, I’m good at it. One might go as far as to say: unusually accomplished. Certainly practised. Which makes me well-placed to tell you lot, so brand spanking new to the WFH scene, how it’s done.
First: you should be prepared for how epically discombobulating it feels in the early days. The emotional disruption of not going to a place every morning at 9am or thereabouts – even if you hate it, even if it bores you to tears and your boss is a knob and your colleagues are ghastly and you spend your time fantasising about inheriting a massive amount of money and blowing the whole idiotic scene sky high, even then – the impact of your physical office not being a central part of your life any more is huge. We’re institutionalised from five years old, innit. Getting up and going to some place every day of the working week is all we know. Take that out of the equation – the obligation, the responsibility, the sense of purpose; the distraction of other people, the physical logistics of getting there, even – that’s a lot of stuff to no longer have to contend with.
It amounts to an absence. A loss. So, yes: understand that, and embrace it.
Next: you need a routine. Routines hold us down like fantasy bae in the lyrics of a summer banger. I don’t care how mega easy-schmeezy chill ’n’ go with the flow you flatter yourself you are. Your soul requires boundaries or it’ll lose itself. Me? I’m regimented as hell. Up and rehydrating by 6.45am every damn day; headlines and a slice of lemon in a cup of hot water, 20 minutes mini Pilates flow to get my body back in the mobility game, shower, porridge; crack the laptop open by 9am at the very latest. I do this not because I’m some hard-boiled Goop-addled power bitch, one eye permanently trained on the competition, the other on the end goal; but because I’m forever faintly scared that if I didn’t, I’d stop doing anything at all. I don’t just mean writing. I mean anything.
And last, but by no means least: get dressed as well as you know how. No – really. I understand that now might seem like the perfect opportunity to blur the distinctions between being in bed and not being in bed – but don’t. Do not stay in a ratty T-shirt and battered PJ pants, only switching out the top half briefly for a Skype call. Do not reach for the elasticated waistbands (unless they’re attached to the high-concept matching joggers and sweatshirt you’re currently combining with heels and a blazer and heavy-chain jewellery, in the style of Instagram’s leading influencers). Do not think that ‘no one will know’ if you do not wear a bra for a day or three. You will know! And you will not feel good about it.
Every day that I have worked from home, I’ve dressed the f*** up. I’ve outfit-planned for WFH days in advance. I’ve taken an entire look off and rebuilt it from the ground up ’cos it turned out it wasn’t meeting the basic standards to which I aspire at all times, which is to say: dress like you’re about to have an unscheduled encounter with an ex whom you are still interested in impressing (even when there’s no earthly chance of that, because you’re WFH). I’ve done three outfit changes in the course of a single WFH day (smart casual for the morning, bedazzling lycra for a lunchtime gym session, glamour for the après midi). At one point, I even instigated a Dress Up Friday scheme in the nearby café from which I often work (when it’s not corona), which is like Dress Down Friday, except the absolute opposite, intended to raise the aesthetic game of my colleagues in freelance, who also spend much of their time in that café, too.
You should be aware that Wfh-wear is distinct from straight office wear. It’s an opportunity to go a little dressier, a little more daring, than one might in the actual office, because, hey! There’s no such thing as De Trop in your own home. (NB: I’ve just realised I sound like I’m joking, but I’m not. This is actual rationale, plucked from my actual head, following my actual decision to wear a satin slip dress under a hoodie under a leather blazer with Arket’s fat-soled Chelsea boots first thing on a recent Tuesday morning.)
The time you’ll get back from no longer commuting amounts to an opportunity to work on the ever-evolving oeuvre that is your look: to try this with this for once, see what happens. Belt up things you never thought of belting before. Roll some things up, let some things down. Layer with abandon! (NB: this is also a realistic goal for quarantine. I know you think you’re going to learn French and write a novel – but you’re not. You may well, however, emerge from it better styled than you were when you went in.)
Attend to your hair and make-up quite as if you were a 1950s housewife waiting for the hubby to come home, only the returning hubby in this scenario, my loves, is you.
Standards must be maintained.
If this sounds a little shallow: a) shallow is all that’s standing between me and madness right now (Keep Shallow And Carry On), and b) anyway, it’s not. When we dress ourselves, we express ourselves. We establish an intention for ourselves. We create. We remake ourselves. We amuse ourselves. We divert ourselves. We remind ourselves there is more to us than merely ‘getting through’ the next few days, weeks, months. (In related news, I am currently working up the concept of Quarantini Bikini Instagram shots. More on that as it happens @pollyvernon).
‘ WFH-WEAR GIVES YOU A CHANCE TO BE MORE DARING’