You’re looking at three things in this photo:
1 Skinny jeans are completely and totally over. The skinny leg silhouette is reserved for technical sports leggings only now. (She says, fully intending to keep wearing her straight leg jeans with boots for the rest of winter.) Find some sort of boyfriend shape that suits you and start getting used to them.
2 The cross body bag is also over. Any minute now verily the thing to have will be one of these holdy mini-tote grabby bag things. Now, look, before you all get furious, I know that you will still need to wear a cross body when engaged in serious childcare, I’m just saying that don’t go thinking that they are in fashion any more. They are not.
3 Big shirts are about to be all over the place. Literally! Splurging out of the top of your collar, and cuffs dangling about everywhere, getting in your soup. This shirt I’m wearing here, which is a tuxedo shirt from J Crew isn’t really big enough to show you what I’m talking about, but you get the idea.
Think Laurence Llewelyn Bowen crossed with Donna Tartt in her author biog picture from The Secret History. Big. Shirt. If you resent the puffy bulkiness of a big shirt under a fine knit then layer a close-fitting vest over the shirt and under then knit, as I have done here, it streamlines your outline a bit – and also adds a vital layer of warmth in these chilly days.
January 19, 2016 at 8:38 am
You will have to take my cross-body bag from my cold, dead hands! I’ve got an orange leather Coach one with two tassels (tassels are “in”, yes?) that I bought in the US a few years back, and it’s perfect – wine in one hand, shopping in the other. I spend a lot of my life in airports and on planes, and cross-body is the only way to go there as well – paperwork or coffee in one hand, wheely case in the other. :-)
January 19, 2016 at 9:38 am
I love this. Of course! Cross-body bags aren’t BANNED, especially if you have an exciting busy job as you sound like you do. The trick is to ALSO have a holdy grabby tote thing for smart meetings, or daytime parties – I imagine your diary is full of both xxx
January 19, 2016 at 1:53 pm
Oh yay, I do love my cross-body bags. Luckily, it’s not a job, just a life, and I’m currently also hauling around a fab new tote from Cath Kidston (really) and it fits freaking everything in it (http://www.cathkidston.com/bags/hampstead-rose-mid-size-grab-tote-1015623). Pattern isn’t too chintzy either.
January 19, 2016 at 9:02 am
I need to embrace the boyfriend jean badly. Where are the best ones? I am 5’8 size 10-12. Saw some ones that looked ok in uniqlo yesterday ..
January 19, 2016 at 9:10 am
try them on! you basically have the proportions of a supermodel so you’ll look alright in anything
January 19, 2016 at 9:07 am
I am so excited about this I’m looking at shirts now. I can DO this.
January 19, 2016 at 9:10 am
you CAN. remember: BIG SHIRT
January 19, 2016 at 9:20 am
Where are your jeans from Esther?
January 19, 2016 at 9:32 am
Gap Girlfriend jeans. vg
January 19, 2016 at 9:26 am
Ha ha, I carry my stuff in a Karrimor rucksack. Yes I *have* pretty much given up on fashion.
January 19, 2016 at 9:29 am
Hoping that seventies-style flared jeans are still OK as am wearing them?
January 19, 2016 at 9:36 am
definitely
January 19, 2016 at 9:38 am
Phew! Although, tbh, it’s the only shape that suits me so would wear them anyway…xxx
January 19, 2016 at 9:39 am
do it. just don’t forget your big shirt to go with it xxx
January 19, 2016 at 9:56 am
A good shirt tip if you don’t like having shirt sleeves under tight sweater sleeves as it makes your arms feel like they are being strangled is to get those sleeveless shirts from Gap that you see people like Martha Stewart wearing. They look pretty awful on their own but are brilliant under tight tops as you get the collar and flapping bit at the bottom without the bulky upper arm nonsense.
January 19, 2016 at 10:13 am
Sleeveless shirts and a layering vest…am on it!!
January 19, 2016 at 10:21 am
So useful to hear all this. Thank you. Amazing news about skinny jeans – my knees hated them.
January 19, 2016 at 11:54 am
I couldn’t really bear them – suffocating
January 19, 2016 at 2:30 pm
Any alternative to boyfriend jeans? I have one pair but don’t particularly want a second.
January 19, 2016 at 3:11 pm
Flares are back! And also ankle grazers, sort of wide cropped jeans that finish short (though not rolled, like a boyfriend) if that doesn’t sound totally hideous…
January 19, 2016 at 3:16 pm
I’d love a pair of boyfriends but cannot find a pair that are high rise (to squish the lovehandles into submission) AND extra long length (so I can turn them up without getting cropped jeans) for love nor money nor first born. Any recommendations from anyone?
January 19, 2016 at 6:11 pm
no no no – NO boyfriends are high rise – the idea is that they sit UNDER one’s lovehandles. will that not work?
January 26, 2016 at 8:37 pm
Ohhhh but Esther I end up with a hideous double bump if I do that. Waist goes in, hips go out, then back in a bit, then thighs go out again. Know what I mean? Low rise anything just slices me in half, and hello muffin. I’d have to cover it with a baggyish top and I have got it into my head that loose trousers need a fitted top, and vice versa. Am I wrong?
January 26, 2016 at 8:49 pm
hmmm Snolls I see your problem. know what? ignore me. wear what you feel best in x
January 20, 2016 at 12:26 am
Big shirts under a knit -takes me right back to the early 90s. I’m ok with it provided people don’t start wearing Kangol hats again
January 20, 2016 at 9:12 pm
Oh I love your best between shirt & jumper idea, genius! Boyfriend jeans have been my favourites for a while now but in this chilly weather have reverted to skinny’s because boyfriend jeans need bare ankles, no?
January 20, 2016 at 9:19 pm
not necessarily – I have been wearing mine with socks. it’s quite a particular “look” but I’m spearheading it… xx