Going back to work after a holiday required waking up with an alarm again, and wearing joined-up clothes. The first day back at work was a jeans day, but after that it was actual clothes, with a detour into Uggs on a particularly cold day. I like giving myself limits in my choice of clothes, so I had loosely decided that the first week back would entail wearing pants, the second dresses, the third skirts. I thought that this would ensure that I worked my way through all my clothes, but I soon found that it wasn’t really working out like that. I am easily bored, so in the past I would set myself little challenges like this, or only wearing a certain colour for a week, and I had the extensive wardrobe to indulge myself.
The first week, which was effectively only three days in “proper” clothes, I realised that as most of my wardrobe is trousers, being spoiled for choice would be my problem.
On the PD day, first day back to work in buildings which had been empty and in heated for a couple of weeks, I wore loose, embroidered, organic cotton Stella Macartney jeans, and a navy merino rollneck from Filippa K, and a blanket-like yak wool scarf. The Filippa K is one of three sweaters I have from the label. I’m not a fan of roll necks, but these are very generous and chunky, with huge turned up cuffs. Everything about the sweater feels cosy and forgiving. I wore navy nubuck chelsea boots, and felt comfortable, and put together in a relaxed way.
The second day I wore one of my first sales bargains, a pair of black and white jacquard cropped, wide-legged trousers from Max Mara. I always swore I would never wear wide cropped trousers, but when I saw these I had been watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and these struck me as rather Miss Fisher. All my oversized trousers are an actual size bigger than my regular size, because I want them to feel loose everywhere, rather than bagging round the hips and strangling my waist (obviously this has been extremely helpful over the carb/sugar-fest that was the whole of December). I wore the trousers with a black sweater with a white motif, from the Uniqlo/Marimekko collaboration – part of my Christmas haul from my sister. I like the trousers with plain black or block colours, but I most like to play off the black and white with even more of it, in my earrings or scarf or shoes.
The next day I knew would involve an hour standing outside in the bitter cold, so it was black moleskin jeans tucked into tall Uggs, with a thick rollneck cashmere knit. The sweater ends at the waist/hip, and the jeans aren’t high-waisted, so they don’t necessarily work together, unless you really want to inadvertently expose a bit of pale wobble. My solution was to wear a silk camisole under the sweater instead of the usual cotton under layer, this particular camisole being a longer than usual one, so the unrelieved matte black of wool/brushed cotton/sheepskin was broken up with white polkadots on black silk-satin.
It was a short week, and on the fourth and final day, I knew I would be taking possession of a http://www.vestiarecollective.com purchase (ordered in 2019, so therefore permissible!) jacket, which deserves its own post.
A Bohemian Punk Grows Up 