Fashion lessons to learn
Itchy doesn’t go away and no, that colour doesn’t look good on you. Shane Watson shares candid advice.
It’s September, the new season’s 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 20s, 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 velvet-roped 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 Guantanamo 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 really suit 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.
Assuming that once you get it home, some makeup 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 changing cubicle: ‘‘That’s nice.’’ So what if you look nice? You’re not the director of an art 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 Investment Buy.
What IBs generally become is back-ups for grown-up, sombre occasions where you will feel smart and 20 years older.
Six denim skirts later, you’re still not past the bedroom door - because you don’t look like Blondie...
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.