How to wear clothes articles - The Guardian

[melt977]

Here comes the new one:



How to wear clothes

The lacy look

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday May 27, 2006
The Guardian


[/FONT]Lace, for all its air of wide-eyed innocence, is a tricky fabric to wear, and one that can trip up even the shrewdest of dressers. Because of this, it tends not to figure overly much in our day-to-day wardrobes. But this summer is different: Chloé's stiff white lace dress has been one of the season's most hunted-for items, despite a price tag of more than £2,000; in its wake, a flotilla of lacy frocks, skirts, blouses and blazers has appeared on the high street.

The meaning of lace depends primarily on the colour. In white, it is virginal and pure (think first communion and bridal dresses); in black or red, it is sexy in a commercial, Ann Summers way. And herein lies the difficulty: while at home in churches and boudoirs, when worn in any other environment, lace can still project either a prissy, buttoned-up girlishness or a vaguely Carry On-ish sauciness. And neither is quite the tone in which we sophisticated modern women would like to project our sexuality, methinks.

So, how to get it right? For a start, I'm afraid the privileged few who shelled out for the Chloé number had it right in one way - quality is essential, since nothing looks more tawdry than cheap lace. Spending thousands isn't necessary, but looking for a deep, matt finish is: shiny lace is for dollies and doilies. The most catwalk-worthy and sophisticated lace right now is "guipure" or "venise" lace, which is a bold, open-work lace that has no net backing, like rich embroidery without the base fabric beneath. Guipure lace is usually expensive, but broderie anglaise has the same sense of being nothing like a net curtain and is widely available on the high street (try Warehouse). If you're still nervous, try lace in navy or brown: no one has figured out what these mean, yet, so you're safe for a while.

 

[QuirkyCool]

Thanks melt.... if there's one thing I actually cannot stand,it's lace. On anyone,anywhere.

I quite like broderie anglaise in small doses when I'm in a certain mood,though...

 

[melt977]

^ i know.... if not done perfectly, lace can look vulgar....

 

[melt977]

The dress code

Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian

Wearing a dress before 7pm is no longer the preserve of schoolgirls and ladies who lunch. Once considered the badge of a primarily decorative life - the uniform of those who perch with legs demurely crossed, like the fairy at the top of the Christmas tree, out of reach of the grubby business of work - the dress has been rebranded as one-stop dressing for the busy and important. This has been, to a substantial degree, a revolution pioneered by one formidable woman, Diane von Furstenberg. With her now ubiquitous wrap dress, she created a new market: fashion for women who are not wholly comfortable with such lowbrow notions as fashion.

But the day dress hits a snag at this time of year. To maintain its newfound air of purpose, the dress needs to keep a sense of decorum. A key part of the appeal of the wrap dress was that it made the long-sleeved dress - a category that has traditionally had a Sunday-school air - look just racy enough, without being revealing. On the other hand, short-sleeved dresses tend to look either too casual, if they have T-shirt sleeves, or too nursery-ish, if they have shaped sleeves. Which leaves us with dresses without sleeves. If your office or your arms make these tricky, you have two options: a cover-up, or a cover-under. The cover-up is obvious: this should be a cropped jacket or a duster coat rather than a cardigan. The cover-under is a bit of a curveball: try wearing a dress with straps at the shoulders over a plain crew-neck T-shirt.

I am not suggesting this is a look for formal offices, but neither do I think it need be only for art students. It is, in fact, an intelligent solution to the dilemma of dressing for work. The summer spin-off of the DvF wrap dress. Ladies, let this be the summer we break out of our cardigans.

 

[tott]

Thanks for posting these melt!

 

[melt977]

^ My pleasure!

 

[melt977]

How to wear clothes
Sale shopping

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday June 24, 2006
The Guardian

[/FONT]Maybe it's because I'm a killjoy who has lost touch with the thrill of the chase. Maybe it's because I'm a wimp who recoils from the heat of battle. Maybe it's because I'm a deluded control freak who clings blindly to the notion that my sartorial instincts are governed by notions of taste and style rather than crass market forces. Whatever the reason, I don't like sale shopping. Actually, it's more than that: I don't see the point, at a high street level at least. High street shopping has become so ferociously competitive that the kind of prices once found only in the bargain bin are now there for the taking all year round.

A decade ago, if you had £20 to spend on a pair of shoes, you could choose from shoes so undesirable that they were left on pavement racks on Oxford Street, secure in the knowledge that they were scarcely desirable enough to bother stealing. Compare and contrast with this season, when New Look has had a choice of fabulous wedges for £20 or less for a good three months.

Now that the Primark effect has brought us silly prices all year round, sale shopping does not make as much sense. Nor can I believe that it's the unpredictability of sale shopping that keeps pulling in the crowd: the scarcity value of key pieces, some of which seem to make more appearances in magazines than they do on the shopfloor, along with the blink-whoops-none-left pace at which mini-collections supersede each other, surely injects enough uncertainty into the high street experience.

In other words, to go shopping and find none of the things you had your eye on, but come home with an unrelated pocket-money-level bargain, is now an all-year-round experience. Maybe I do like sale shopping after all; just not when the sales are on.

 

[Desire]

i agree with the article now sales are all year round
keep posting them i really enjoy reading it
thank you melt977!!

 

[LoveMyBoots]

In other words, to go shopping and find none of the things you had your eye on, but come home with an unrelated pocket-money-level bargain, is now an all-year-round experience. Maybe I do like sale shopping after all; just not when the sales are on.

I have to agree, but I still love browsing (if that's really the right word).

 

[QuirkyCool]

I dislike sales shopping....but unfortunately in the Netherlands the "Primark effect" has yet to be felt . There is way too little competition and not much choice on the "high street" at all.

As far as boutique and designer sales go,I am able to wait until the worst rush is over,then go and find a thing or two...it helps to be a non-standard fashionista size .

Mostly though,if I see something I like I get it at the beginning of the season,and I'd hate to see it on sale for half the price later so I just don't go.

 

[melt977]

Not one of her best, but here it goes:



How to wear clothes


Bag beautiful

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday July 8, 2006
The Guardian


[/FONT]You know you're getting old when you realise you have become inadvertently fashionable by dint of a look you have been wearing for years suddenly becoming au courant. Men of a certain age and vintage, who never quite pulled the ripcord on the tank top, and who have recently been surprised to note this highly practical garment once again appearing in menswear campaigns ... you know where I'm coming from.

For me, the moment came when I realised that the New Season Outsize Handbags - the giant Yves-Saint Laurent Muse and the cavernous Mulberry Elgin, for instance - were the exact size that I have long considered right and appropriate for everyday work use. For inclination and fashion to fall into step in this way is, of course, a happy coincidence. But, like the woman who balks at wearing this season's 1970s sunglasses because she remembers sporting them the first time round, I do not welcome this reminder that I am getting long in the tooth. I wonder: when the first monkey, after decades' banging away at the typewriter, looks up and discovers he has written the first page of Hamlet, will he feel the same way?

Anyway. In my new position as a wise and knowing fashion old-timer, here's a tip for novices on the subject of giant bags: if a bag is big - say, if you can fit a newspaper and a laptop in it - then the straps must be able to fit comfortably over your shoulder. This is essential and much ignored, because today's big bags are so soft and have such voguish pretend-baby-daughter names (Edith, Betty) that you can easily be fooled into thinking they're sweet bundles to be carried in the crook of your arm, when, in fact, that's a surefire route to chronic back pain.

Did I mention this big bag thing makes me sound a bit of an old lady?

 

[Kurogoma]

She is so right!

I love and always carry big bags, but the fact that it doesn´t fit over the shoulder has kept me from buying the medium edith so far.

 

[melt977]

How to wear clothes

Communal changing rooms

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday September 2, 2006
The Guardian

[/FONT]Unlike almost every other woman I know, I love communal changing rooms. Not because of any exhibitionist tendencies, nor Sapphic ones. I am not interested in seeing my fellow changees without their clothes on, but rather in watching their reactions when they try on their chosen wares.

Specifically, I love watching the moment when a woman tries on something and loves it. Because the same thing always happens: she starts to flirt with herself in the mirror. Often, she will shift her weight slightly onto one hip, unconsciously adopting the figure-flattering pose beloved of Liz Hurley and her fellow paparazzi princesses; frequently she will hook her thumbs into her hip pockets, pushing the breasts forward a little. If barefoot, she will usually lift her heels, adopting the Barbie pose of being high-heeled even when naked. And, in 99% of cases, she will fluff her hair and pout a bit. This is fashion's version of sexual chemistry; suddenly, the stale fug of air freshener (or worse) is pierced by the new scent of possibility.

I bring this up now because you may well want to go shopping for a new pair of trousers in the not-too-distant future. There is a new trouser shape out there: a slouchy, slightly masculine, wide-legged, cuffed-hem style that is definitely a trouser rather than a jean. It is an autumnal, wearable version of the rolled-up, loose shorts which the likes of Kate Moss have been wearing all summer. It may well need a belt (so take one with you when you shop). Look for a style easy-fitting enough that VPL is not an issue, but not so baggy that it bulks up your behind, Charlie Chaplin style. And wait until you find yourself having a golly-Miss Moneypenny-you're-beautiful moment. With yourself. And don't mind the weirdo in the corner - it's only me.

 

[Couture_Tribe]

Great articles, love reading all of them!

 

[Kurogoma]

What does she mean with VPL?

 

[melt977]

Visible Panty Line

 

[dandylions]

love this thread! just read all 8 pages at one go. yay! thanks much for posting

 

[skirted]

I thought that last one was quite charming...and thank goodness for the return of the slouchy trouser...

 

[melt977]

How to wear clothes


Moss style

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday September 23, 2006
The Guardian

[/FONT]The star-struck fawning of fashion writers over Kate Moss is, even I can see, becoming excruciatingly dull: all this witless drooling, like gawky kids with a crush on the coolest girl in the sixth form. From time to time we like to pretend we're over her, but one glimpse of the tilt of a trilby renders us helpless and hopeless all over again, like jilted lovers for whom every other song on Magic FM is a knife to the heart. And in case you thought Moss's influence might be waning, get this: this season, she has made grey sexy.

Grey is hardly the colour of fashion dreams; rather, it is the colour of bus conductors' uniforms. But since Moss started wearing a pair of grey Superfine jeans almost two years back, it has been edging back in as the modern rock chick's alternative to black. Add to this the fact that Miuccia Prada has this season broken with the ironic ladylike aesthetic and returned to the charcoal-heavy, utilityinfluenced modernism with which she made such a splash last decade, and you have a trend on your hands.


The trouble with grey is that it's hard to wear without looking, well, grey. You need the right shade: fadedfrom- black is a good place to start for weekend wear; for workwear, deep charcoal tones tend to be more flattering than pale pebbly greys, which render many complexions horribly peaky. Be imaginative about what you wear it with, too: grey with cream, for instance, can look fabulous, as can grey with silver, although neither is as fabulous as grey with leopard-print, which will gain you an early autumn/winter gold star.
On the other hand, grey with pink looks like you're stuck in the early 1990s and on your way to a Step class. And grey skinny jeans with a waistcoat is a bit too literal a Moss-a-like: more Stars In Your Eyes than star quality.

 

[melt977]

How to wear clothes
The new look? You already have it

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday October 7, 2006
The Guardian

[/FONT]I probably shouldn't admit this, being - arguably, in a roundabout way - in the business of selling fashion, but this particular autumn, I have found the hard sell of fashion's New Season a little difficult to swallow. Each shop window promising to reveal secrets of the Essential New Look reminds me of those 1950s advertisements for washing powder in which the glassy-eyed housewife clutches a packet of All New Secret Formula tightly to her bosom as if it were an industrial-sized box of Valium.

This is not just me getting old and grumpy. The thing is, some New Seasons are newer than others, and this autumn's clothes are not, really and truly, all that different from last autumn's. The tides of fashion are not as dramatic as it would suit some to have you believe: directions in shape and colour and mood come in overlapping waves, and not every season is a high-water mark. So this season's New Smart, with its emphasis on dark colours and belts and jackets and block-heeled court shoes and gloves and hosiery, is not a world apart from last autumn's polished Hitchcock Heroine. The one key difference is that fashion's fetish for the accoutrements of the "lady" is at last beginning to wane; which, translated into plain English, means we can wear proper trousers again.

Even the much-trumpeted new wide-legged trouser shape is not quite the catwalk revolution some would have you believe: skinny trousers were still, in fact, much in evidence at the shows, so if you have finally found a pair to suit/sold the family heirlooms to pay for liposuction on your saddlebags, then rest assured you can continue to hold your head high in skinnies. Finally, as for the leap from last autumn's "tulip" shaped skirts to this season's "cocoon" shaped dresses - frankly, if you're dozy enough to buy that one, you might want to lay off the Valium, sister.