“I raid her wardrobe if I need a dress”
This yellow and black dress is from my daughter’s overflowing wardrobe. Why should I spend time and money trailing round the shops looking for a new outfit when she has more clothes than London Fashion Week?
So, if I need a dress for a special occasion, I often simply raid her wardrobe. To be fair, I trust her fashion advice. She has amazing taste and a lovely sense of style. Borrowing her clothes saves me from stressing out over what to buy and where to buy it.
I’m a child of the 60s and loved Biba and Mary Quant. So the abstract pop-art pattern on this dress appeals to me. Yellow was a key colour then too. Think of Joni Mitchell’s hit ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ or Donovan’s laid back hippy trip ‘Mellow Yellow’ and you’ll see what I mean.
When we lived in London in the summer of our youth, I recall buying a pair of bright yellow platform shoes at Brixton Market.
If only I had them now.
“Party like it’s 1989!”
Jumpsuits are all the rage these days, but this little black number is 34 years old! Style, as they say, never goes out of fashion. One of the most sustainable ways to get dressed up for a night out is to ‘shop’ in your own wardrobe first. But, if that doesn’t work, try looking in the wardrobes of friends and family. You never know what you might find. People often keep amazing clothes which they’ve almost forgotten they have.
My sister-in-law originally bought this jumpsuit for a Christmas disco in the late 1980s. She kindly lets me borrow it when I want to party like it’s 1989. It’s funny to think jumpsuits were originally designed as exactly that – a tight-fitting trouser ensemble in which you could jump out of a plane. The first fashion jumpsuit appeared in Vogue in 1964. Now they’re a classic item of ‘slow fashion’ which can be appreciated across the generations.
