How to make your summer event outfit work harder
Forget the old adage ‘saving for best’. Caroline Leaper shows how you can get the most out of your occasion favourites
How many pieces in your wardrobe do you look at and think: “Oops, I only wore that once?” For most, the rail reads as follows; a dozen or so statement dresses that you only wore at weddings, some old holiday outfits that everyone has already seen on Facebook, and a tangled clutch of ill-fitting spangly tops that were last-minute purchases on the day of a party.
Getting good mileage out of the clothes that you buy is, I’d say, pretty imperative and I recently came to the conclusion that I’d wear things a lot more if I stopped saving my posh things “for best”. The three reasons that generally stop people from doing so seem to be as follows: 1. There is a social media-conditioned fear of being seen in the same outfit twice. 2. No one wants to be considered “overdressed”, a risk that greatens if you’re trying to make fancy frocks work in casual scenarios. 3. We worry that we might “wear out” or break something we spent a bit more money on. That last point, and making sure that I enjoy wearing the things I really love, is something that I’ve only recently learned to allow myself to do.
Fashion environmentalists will tell you that wearing anything fewer than 30 times before sending it to landfill is bad for the planet. Fashion economists will say that, regardless of what you paid for it, your cost-per-wear ratio should hit £1:1 in order to truly represent good value for money. According to analysts at fashion e-tailer Lyst, British women will spend an average of £144 on a skirt for work (which we will likely wear week in, week out), yet we’re willing to pay more than £210 for a wedding guest dress. Why wouldn’t we expect to wear it just as many times?
“I think it is a very British thing to do, to keep clothes for good
‘Getting good mileage out of the clothes that you buy is pretty imperative’
occasions,” Inès de la Fressange, the French fashion model and poster woman of Parisian chic recently told me. “In France we have no such thing as this. We mix sophisticated things with casual things and it works wherever you go. We don’t respect the clothes – we will wear the silk with the denim, or whatever.”
Respecting the clothes, as de la Fressange puts it, is an interesting notion, regardless of whether or not you agree that it’s a marker of British dressing habits. Dress codes, generally, are not as strict as they used to be. Black tie no longer requires a gown, Ascot is allowing variety ( jumpsuits, at least) into its enclosures and, for a wedding, you might wear anything from a maxi dress to a silk kimono. On the catwalk, designers are mixing things up to the point where almost anything goes. Gucci’s Alessandro Michele has perhaps led the demise of the once-acknowledged occasionwear boundaries, as he will pair trainers with chiffon gowns, or denim jackets with lurex trousers in his collections, no qualms about it, and others have duly followed. All of this makes that idea of keeping things “for best” sound quite old fashioned. When the events we now attend are less easy to define, perhaps our wardrobes should be more fluid, too.
That all said, learning how to re-wear your occasion outfits is not as simple as suddenly deciding to style your party pieces with jeans, all day, any day. Inevitably, too, there will be a time when only a ballgown will suffice, or you’ll want to shell out on a one-off outfit for a milestone event. For occasions that are not so momentous, though, there are formulas that you can employ when out shopping and which will help anyone to appreciate an outfit’s potential beyond that initial event.
Buying separates is probably the easiest way to guarantee more wears per item if you’re looking for occasionwear. Naturally, you can build up or break down the blocks of it (which don’t all have to match, by the way) and you’ll probably surprise yourself at which pieces you end up reusing the most. One of the most worn things in my entire wardrobe is a silver lurex top, which probably reads like a ridiculous declaration on paper. But I first wore it with a full pink skirt to a wedding in
2013 and have since paired it
with jeans and a giant cardigan at weekends, allowed its interesting texture to peek out from under a black jumper with tailored trousers at work, and worn it out for drinks on countless Saturday nights as a simple, neutral cocktail top. It’s the same one as I’m wearing in the picture here – Reiss seems to remake it every season in the knowledge that they’re on to a versatile winner. When buying a dress, look at the upper and lower halves as separate entities. Would you wear its skirt as a skirt? Would it look good with a T-shirt or a light knit worn over the top? Take extra bits into the changing room with you so that you can judge there and then, if you’re looking at a one-hit wonder, or if something has restyle opportunity.
With tops, try tucking it into a skirt as well as wearing it loose over jeans – does it give flattering proportions in both instances? On bags; can it be worn as a cross-body (more useful for day) or will it only ever work as an evening clutch? In all cases, is the item made of a fabric so delicate that it would disintegrate on the bus, or couldn’t be washed? Shoes, also, can make or break a piece’s afterlife potential. Of the fails in my own wardrobe, one of them is a jacquard pencil skirt, which I wore once to a wedding in 2016. Pencil skirts, unfortunately, don’t look very good with flats, as the tighter fit jars with anything other than a poised heel. Its redundancy, I now know, was inevitable. This isn’t a decree to only choose practical clothes over fanciful ones henceforward. It’s the absolute opposite, in fact. Buying things that are sparkly, fun, luxurious, frivolous, and so on, is entirely the point. Rather, consider this a green light to not panic-buy another average floral wedding guest dress for the sake of having something new to wear to Brenda’s daughter’s nuptials. Instead, use the money that would otherwise have been misspent to buy that gorgeous silk blouse that you’ve had your eye on for ages, and style it with a great skirt or smart trousers that you already own. You’ll wear that blouse again and again because it’s versatile and because you really, honestly love it. This way, you’ve shopped with your head as well as your heart.