…BEATING THE JANUARY BLUES WITH JOANNE TOOLAN’S PUNCHY PASTELS
I’ve been thinking a lot about spring this week. It’s been unexpectedly cold and miserable, so I need something, anything, to daydream about and take my mind off things. This is probably the reason I’m craving colour and newness, and maybe why this outfit recipe feels quintessentially ‘un-me’ since having a baby. Leggings and a nice knit fatigue has well and truly kicked in after all my virtue signalling last week (see, fashion is wildly contradictory) and so I have come to the conclusion that the secret to getting dressed in lockdown 3 is to sartorially honour how I’m feeling every day.
What you see here is a belted twill dress – not exactly new territory for me but after pregnancy followed by months mostly spent in a multitude of layers, I might just be ready to embrace a uniform of sorts again.
In a pre-motherhood and pandemic world, this silhouette used to be my go-to template for getting dressed quickly in the morning - a sartorial holy grail for saving time while still feeling like the best version of myself.
The function I often crave in a tailored dress is the ability to feel polished while still moving around freely and showing off some of my personality. This one is my ideal aesthetic sandwich. Soft and stretchy yet structured, it doesn’t sacrifice my ability to pick up or toys or do laundry or even take the buggy and dogs around the block in the rain.
I’m still not sure if the dress itself or the boots (they are three years old and still garner affection) carry this outfit but I love how both come together in perfect harmony and hide my laddered tights underneath.
What makes this dress a keeper is the clever cut and fit that melts rather than sticks to my body shape. It skirts on utility wear but not in the stereotypical sense of the word.
Utility, by aesthetic nature, is often loosely fit, in weightier fabrics and void of decoration. This is a softer, silkier iteration stitched together in a mocha twill that feels like the snug equivalent of satin and the greatest joy to wear, truly. The collar is