Wrap It Up, 2023

in a shawl

December has always been my month to ‘dress’, by which I mean dress UP. That’s ‘up’ within certain limits; I won’t do very high heels or much makeup, tight trousers or skirts, or - condemn me for a snob here - polyester. Back in my salad days, the chief quality I sought in going-out looks was, in my head, a left-of-centre level of sexy that would draw compliments from girls and women I considered stylish while also being just wonky enough to not appeal to anyone I’d find undesirable (this made perfect sense at the time). This meant that I frequently relied for warmth on alcohol and tights (this also made perfect sense at the time).

The better part of two decades later, I’m no longer capable of being that blasé about the prospects of nippy cold or a pickled liver, and my dressing-up bag of tricks is basically down to a template: nice fabrics and low-heeled shoes, with the odd piece from my ‘regular’ i.e. worn to office wardrobe doing its bit to fill in the gaps - a white shirt here, a roll neck there. Boring for anyone on instagram maybe, but as I edge closer to forty, I find that what I really aspire to in the way I dress when dressing ‘up’ is a level of authority and opulence, things that were only a distant dream for me as a younger woman.

For other people, this might find expression in what got dubbed ‘coastal grandma’ style; for me, this translates to ‘does this fall along the Manuela Pavesi/Miuccia Prada axis?’ I really don’t have any claims to originality on this, but when the template is so good, why bother?

outfits from earlier in the month, when I felt like making an effort and pulling out the seamed holdups, vintage Prada skirts and the brooch I rabbit-holed over a few months ago

That said, one of the things I miss most about the way people - specifically, the women and girls I thought were the best at it - approached dressing at the height of the later 00s fashion blogging pre-tumblr era, is a certain freewheeling disregard for the designated purpose and presentation of a garment. In simpler words, what it was intended to be worn as and how to wear it. Back when I was just a rookie clothing-chooser still tying her cardigan around her waist, 90s-style, and cutting the sleeves and hems off tshirts I thought would be improved by it, Susie Bubble, Dreamecho and Moohoop (whose livejournal is sadly mostly beyond the reach of the wayback machine’s powers of retrieval), to name just three, opened my eyes to the possibilities of skirts worn as tops, shirts worn as skirts, cardigans worn front to back, jewellery worn as hair fastenings and even the odd scarf as a dress.

That last was what indirectly resulted in the pics below - my feeling far too lazy to ‘dress’ for Sunday lunch i.e. get into an outfit consisting entirely of clothes which have seams. Liana Satenstein (one of my favourite fashion writers ever) once wrote about the possibilities of a sexy summer shawl; I’m more of a winter-shawl person myself, just for the sheer versatility of them (L-R - worn to lounge around in bed and watch Chungking Express on Christmas; worn to nip down to the neighbours’ for drinks; worn just for shits and giggles to see whether it was viable as a skirt).

outfits from now, when I really don’t. Can’t even be bothered to wear an actual dress or skirt. Can’t explain why I’m wearing seamed holdups with them either.

(in my defence, this has precedent back in my late 00s ‘dressing wonky on purpose’ days. My younger self was very fond of a mustard checked shawl that belonged to my best friend; here I am below, wearing it on the left as it was intended to be worn, and on the right, as it wasn’t - as an impromptu dress?skirt? at a New Year’s Eve party in 2008)