Get rid of this old thing? NEVER!
Britain’s in the grip of a decluttering craze. But here five top writers say every woman’s got at least one fashion favourite they’ll always keep...
THE SUIT I SAVED FROM A BIN BAG by Fiona GolFar
A yeAr ago I underwent a wardrobe detox. A very nice lady arrived at my house and started to rifle through my clothes. After 25 years as editor-At-Large at Vogue, to say my cupboards were full would be an understatement. She was horrified at the amount of repeat items I had (over 20 pairs of black trousers).
She explained she followed the so-called KonMari philosophy popularised by tidying consultant Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up and star of a Netflix show.
Back then, I’d only vaguely heard of her. I live in a house filled with a lifetime of what I see as memory, some would call clutter — things inherited from parents and grandparents, pictures, old diaries, letters, clothes, jewellery. For me every picture does tell a story and that applies to much of my wardrobe, too.
She had no interest in the story behind anything she saw as clutter. ‘Why do you need to hold on to these?’ she queried as she hurled herself into my stash of designer handbags.
I watched, horrified, as my belongings were tossed out. At the end of her visit I was left with three large bin bags full of what she deemed ‘surplus’. She then went merrily on her way, job done, cupboards gleaming.
I let the bags sit in my spare room for 24 hours and then I joyfully retrieved 90 per cent of their contents. Key was my Helmut Lang suit bought in 1993. A staple uniform when I started life at Vogue, I wore it to everything. There was never a time in the next 20 years that when I put it on, I didn’t feel sure of myself.
I’ve had many versions of that suit by different designers over the years, but none I have such affection for. Imagine if I had got rid of it for no other reason than to make space. I would never have forgiven myself!
SHOES THAT MADE A POP ICON LOOK TWICE by Shane WatSon
THeSe are my Marni shoes, purchased in about 2004 (some eras are vaguer than others) and still the number one ‘joy sparkers’ in my wardrobe graveyard. This includes: things I can’t throw away because it would be bad luck (the dress I got married in); things I daren’t throw away (the designer tuxedo that cost the same as a second-hand car); a few bits that might yet come into their own (white and gold cowboy boots . . . hmm) and then these platform shoes.
I could say it’s because they’re the comfiest high shoes I’ve ever owned, they never date, the sling back hasn’t lost its sling (unheard of), you can wear them with anything (note to self, look for more coffee and silver shoes ASAP).
Or, I could say that now that they’re scuffed and battered, they’re like an old, glamorous girlfriend, who is still falling in love with unsuitable men and always up for a martini.
All of this is true. But the real reason I could never part with these shoes is that when I wore them a lot — at the height of their powers — they gave me ‘ Who’s That Girl?’ aura. I got noticed, I got respect (from women anyway) and they made me feel more interesting, in a way that nothing else I’ve worn ever has.
They were just zany enough, just impractical enough, just eccentric and ultra fashion enough to suggest that I had some insider knowledge, a groovy job, maybe a flat with a tropical fish tank wall and a glitter ball and a snake for a pet.
All I had to do was put on the shoes and ordinary me (living in a hutch) was perfectly happy striding into a terrifying party, or sitting up at a bar, kicking my heels waiting for a date. No fear here — I’m the sort of girl who wears shoes like this!
When your mother used to say ‘No one’s going to be looking at your shoes, darling’, she was wrong. They are, if these are the shoes of an It-Girl. even if you’re clearly not an It- Girl, you’ve planted a seed of curiosity; with shoes like that, there has to be more going on. If you need proof, here it is. One day, when I was crossing the street in London, wearing said shoes, Paul Weller, crossing in the opposite direction paused, looked me up and down, and gave me a wink. Paul Weller!
It could have been the sheepskin coat, a girlfriend later suggested, a sheepskin car coat being very up Paul Weller’s street. Only I know better.
SKIRT THAT SAYS ‘HERE COMES TROUBLE!’ by Sophia Money-CouttS
I PANIC-bought my electric pink skirt for £40 from Topshop for a family wedding in Shropshire. I was 20. With hindsight, it was too bright and silky thin for I Vow To Thee My Country in a damp church and salmon canapes in a cold marquee.
Soon afterwards, I realised it could be put to much better use. I wore it for an eighties-themed 21st, paired with pink lipstick and handwarmers; to a Hawaii-themed 21st with a garland of frangipani flowers around my neck; to a 50th with an enormous blonde afro wig. It became my good time skirt, the skirt I wrapped around myself in anticipation of a wild night.
Like a matador waving his red cape at a bull, if I appeared anywhere in my pink skirt, my friends learned this meant trouble. I had been a tall, chubby teenager and felt oafish well into my 20s. But my glossy pink skirt seemed to elongate me. It disguised the round curve of my belly, transforming me from dowdy Cinderella into a confident social animal.
I’d always been a calamitous dancer, moving in spasms like a Thunderbirds character, but the skirt helped me feel braver about the dancefloor — it floated in the air as I spun around.
My love affair with the skirt only intensified after I moved to Abu Dhabi to work on a newspaper. The skirt was cool — and demure — enough for the sweltering Gulf city. On one memorable expat weekend several of us flew to Nepal and I wore it on a night that culminated with my best friend hosing me down in the shower.
Looking back at photos of those years makes me teary with nostalgia. I never had a bad — or quiet — night wearing it.
Alas, such a hectic social life took a toll. Threads started warping and a few dubious stains appeared, so when I returned to London, the skirt was put into semi- retirement. Now, as if a family christening gown, it’s brought out only on special occasions — times when I feel the urge to put on my bit of skirt and behave like a lunatic, the last to go to bed, screaming with laughter until the end.
SUNDRESS I WORE TO MY WEDDING by raFFaella Barker
THrOUGH the catwalk of my past, my clothes shift and shimmer — hot pants and minis of my 20s, the stacks of jeans, the tailored jackets from my fashion magazine career and, ultimately, to the finale, my wedding dress. It’s not a wedding dress at all; it’s Alberta Ferretti cruise wear, Spring 2016. A crocheted cotton sundress with a silk lining I asked them to put in so it wasn’t see through. See-through wouldn’t have worked at my summer wedding three years ago in a hilltop village in Tuscany.
Straps, a swirling skirt, tiny pompoms and ric-rac ribbon did work for a small ceremony in a farmhouse garden. The creamy white was easy to wear. It was even practical, which was just as well, as before dinner, someone spilt a full glass of red wine across me.
A shocked interlude, a determined sister-in-law and ten minutes scrubbing at the stain in a stone sink in the farmhouse kitchen followed.
Then the dress was back on, damp and cool in the evening, not a mark on it, and the shock of the averted disaster became another wedding memory.
I would never throw this dress away. I would save it from a fire. I would wear it every day of my life without a second’s thought.
My wedding dress represents as many facets of me as the threads that made it. It carries the happiness of getting ourselves hitched with beloved grown-up children (my husband has two; I have three). In a deceptively simple sundress, Italian designed and cool as can be, I felt myself, not other. I had recovered from breast cancer surgery the summer before, so the sun dress shape
spoke for me and delivered the message of my return to health. No new chapter exists without what came before and there was another wedding. It was 1988, I worked for Harper’s Bazaar and John Galliano made my dress — scalloped swathes of meringue skirt, silver grey gauze bodice, a veil. Fashion heaven. The dress was large and spectacular and after it was all over (wedding and marriage) it lived, crammed into a wardrobe. I felt guilty about it. One day there was a charity car boot sale near where I lived. I took the dress along and sold it to a fashion student who couldn’t believe what she had found in a muddy field in North Norfolk.
DRESS THAT SPARKED LONGEST LOVE AFFAIR by HannaH Betts
THe longest romance I’ve enjoyed in my 47 years is not with any man, but a dress: specifically, the black sheath I have sported for all up-market occasions since the age of 21.
I bought it for a black-tie event with my beloved father at a London gentleman’s club. Not that he wore evening dress, he detested that sort of pomp. Still, I scoured the local department stores in Oxford to find something that would fit the bill. I was an impoverished graduate Wouldn’t do without it (from left): Fiona Golfar, Hannah Betts and Raffaella Barker student, £120 seeming like a king’s ransom.
However, if I work out priceper-wear for the 26 years I have dined, danced and dallied in it, then House of Fraser has long been paying me.
I’ve done everything in it: student parties, work parties, New Year’s eves. It’s seen me through the Baftas swathed in furs, and the Venice Film Festival crowned with a tiara. Over a quarter of a century of thrillseeking, I have climbed trees in it, scaled walls, swum, skated, even sledged in it — then fallen asleep in the thing on more occasions than I care to remember.
And, of course, I’ve fallen in love in it — and had my heart broken. I remember the wedding at which I wore it to stalk past an ex I pined for. Ten years later, I partied in it with another love, eyes only for each other. Now, I wear it with the chap I ended up with: the quieter, steadier love story of my life.
Ostensibly boring on the hanger, my sheath possesses magical powers. For a start, it still fits, something I attribute to always buying my clothes a bit big back in the day. It’s backless, but I’ve rarely donned it without a bolero, which helps now I tend to wear a bra. I’ve experimented with rival party frocks, but none has ever made me feel as sorted, done and dusted — like a chap with his trusty tux.
All of which means that it’s still my go-to dress, at the age of 47. I would say I’ll be buried in it, but I’d rather pass it on for another woman to live it up in.