The fashion lessons we all fail to learn
Fashion faux pas All the lessons I still haven’t learnt about fashion
It’s mid September, the autumn/winter clothes are in the shops, we know what we need, what could possibly go wrong? Well, lots, as it happens. Slightly less than when you were in your twenties, but more than you would have hoped, given the amount of shopping experience we have under our belts. Here are some of the lessons I still haven’t learned about fashion:
Do not copy the assistant. That’s all there is to it.
Respect your heel height limit. Half an inch is the difference between “Ok, fine” and “Can you come and pick me up please? I can’t walk.” They felt OK in the shop. Seriously? That’s all you’ve got?
Itchy doesn’t go away. Itchy builds steadily over the course of an evening and then you have to tear it off in the loos, and spend the rest of the night in your buttoned-up coat and undies.
You can be too rich (you attract hot felons, for example, and you’re on holiday all the time, wandering aimlessly from one marina and velvetroped VIP area to another). You can be too thin, obviously. And you can have too much black… or, these days, navy and grey.
You can’t wear any colour just because you want to. It is a great colour. What is it, petrol blue? Teal? It’s not your colour though, is it? It’s not a colour that does anything for you, specifically. How many times? Get the mustard one while you’re at it, why don’t you! Get the Guantánamo orange.
Know where you are on the effort spectrum. If you are a minimal-effort dresser (lazy and poor at styling), do not get fiddly effort clothes. The 12-buckle ankle boots (seriously?), the dress you have to wear with the slip and the special bra and the belt. All this stuff is the equivalent of a really demanding friend you would like to catch up with, if only you had the energy.
If at first you try and don’t succeed, give up. Take denim skirts. Should be really you. Only (six denim skirts later) you are still not getting past the bedroom door, because you don’t look like Blondie, you look like off-duty Sister Mary Agnes circa 1976. (NB: could all be very different if you could afford the Stella Mccartney button-through.) Same goes for really great-fitting black trousers. You keep snapping those up but every time you put them on you feel like Davina Mccall on a smart-casual mission to reunite a family.
Assuming that once you get it home, some make-up and a little scarf will just pull it all together. Yes, but not on you. On Claudia Schiffer maybe. In a scarf, you look like you’re in a Strictly Come
Dancing hoedown. Don’t listen to the voices. The assistant: “I love this on you…” The woman in the next-door changing cubicle: “That’s nice.” So what if you look nice? You’re not the director of the Serpentine Gallery. You have nowhere to wear it.
It’s a problem if you cannot clean it. Yes, lovely, brooches all over it. Big pearls, little pearls. Charming. But don’t buy it because you can’t clean it.
There is no such thing as an Investment Buy. It will sit in its dress bag because it is tinged with worthiness and the curse of classic and timeless. There will always be other things you need to wear before your IB. What IBS generally become is back-ups for grown-up, sombre occasions where you will feel smart and 20 years older.
Don’t get two. Very occasionally get two… But you’ll get bored of one soon enough.
You are not buying a cushion. That Zara kimono covered in embroidery, which really is pretty and cheap considering, is still totally unwearable. Buy a cushion instead.
‘Never assume some makeup and a little scarf will pull an outfit together. On Claudia Schiffer maybe’