TWO SEASONS, ONE LOOK
A couple of times a year – more if I’m lucky and the inspiration is good – I start to think about dressing in a different way.
My eye shifts gear and suddenly, all I want to wear is cropped trousers or belted dresses or fuzzy sweaters, or some other equally specific thing. Right now, it’s short, flippy skirts and super-size-me knits and knee-high boots.
When the warmer weather arrives, I anticipate swapping the boots for wedges or flatforms (small platforms) – something with a bit of substance to balance out the skirt.
Isabel Marant is the queen of this inverted triangle silhouette and Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga is among many others championing it for autumn (though his has an unmistakable 80s feel).
It’s probably no coincidence that I recently spotted a similar look in this US Vogue shoot (pictured above), which is all about the return of over-the-knee boots. I haven’t resurrected my own pair of thigh-highs just yet, but my knee-high versions have been a staple lately. Last week, during Sydney’s annual week-long cold snap (hey, 16 degrees Celsius is cold, okay?), I wore them with layered knits and a little silk skirt and felt like I was dressing exactly the way I wanted right now.
Oh, and I also experimented with a day clutch, carting around all my other bits and pieces in a trusty Longchamp bag.
Doing: learning about a new range of salon-only Clairol styling products (fun fact: did you know Clairol was founded in 1931?); listening to beauty vlogger extraordinaire Michelle Phan speak about her collaboration with Lancôme (where I was snapped by The Sunday Telegraph – I know some readers have asked to see me wearing my outfits and this time, you can do so above).
Wearing: Scanlan & Theodore olive chunky knit and leopard-print cardigan; Bassike skirt; Dries Van Noten boots; Marni clutch and earrings; Longchamp Le Pliage bag.
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*Michelle Bateman is a freelance writer and editor who blogs about fashion, beauty and the arts on The Modernity Project, as well as contributing to Australian Vogue, Women’s Health, Harper’s Bazaar and Emporium, among other titles. When not testing new lipsticks (and the occasional gloss), she can be found rearranging her wardrobe in a perpetual quest for more space. This season, she is enjoying mixing patterns and clashing colours; she has always been a sucker for a good leopard print.
