Why flip-flops are the new dad jeans

June 7, 2016, 11:25 am

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The sandal that ruled summer from 4,000BC to 2015 is finally over – in sports-obsessed 2016, the functional pool slide is the shoe to be seen in

I was going to write about the Ten Style Rules You Need to Know This Summer, but then I realised that there is only one that really matters. Swapping your white work shirt for a blue one and showing your shoulders instead of your legs is good-to-know, but hardly deal-breaking. There is just one diktat that you need to pay attention to. It is this: no flip-flops.

The flip-flop is the new dad jeans. It’s a red flag that unwittingly marks out your look as past its sell-by date. You might as well go out with your midi skirt caught in your knickers. Are you getting the picture yet?

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Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe matters – but not from a fashion perspective

June 8, 2016, 9:47 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: long layers | Jess Cartner-Morley

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When we discuss what politicians wear, we are measuring their likability and what they would be like to hang out with – as when we debate which leader we’d go to the pub with

On the Today programme on Radio 4 on Wednesday, Mishal Husain called out ex-Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown for suggesting Hillary Clinton should ditch the “Sgt Pepper trouser suits” and “own her inner bitch … [be] the fierce-faced Hillary with the black shades and the BlackBerry”.

“It’s interesting that you say the clothes matter,” interjected Husain, using the word “interesting” in the double-edged sense that also means “clearly preposterous”. “In the 21st century, to a young feminist … [does] her appearance, the actual clothes she wears, matter?”

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What I wore this week: long layers | Jess Cartner-Morley

June 10, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Buy of the day: blue shirts for Father's Day

≪ Previous: Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe matters – but not from a fashion perspective

When your top ends halfway down your legs, the art of clothing yourself looks loftily abstract

I would like to be the kind of woman who exudes elegance and cool authority in long, loose layers, rather than the kind who feels scruffy and short. And while leg length is an issue, the fundamental problem is one of mindset. My knee-jerk reaction when I feel the need to smarten up is to wear clothes that are more fitted. A tailored, waisted jacket feels smarter than an oversized, cocooning one. A close-cut black dress seems more “cocktail” than a loose one.

And I need to get a grip, because this mindset is unforgivably basic. Basic in the pejorative sense of eye-rollingly lame. My tight-equals-smart mindset is idiotic, but it is everywhere. It is why women buy the smallest dress on which they can do up the zip, rather than the size that is most flattering, which is usually the next size up. It is why the Roland Mouret Galaxy dress– tight, formal – was an instant hit, and lives on to this day, in that any full tube carriage at rush hour will boast at least one sleeveless, wool-mix, back-zipped shift dress. It is as if Lycra infantilised us into being able to tell if clothes fit only when they are sausage-skin tight.

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Buy of the day: blue shirts for Father's Day

June 12, 2016, 10:05 pm

≫ Next: Giant swans, bare shoulders and sad chic – 10 looks define summer 2016

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: long layers | Jess Cartner-Morley

Not socks this year, OK?

Ach, what to buy for Father’s Day. Socks? Mug? Barbecue tongs?

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Giant swans, bare shoulders and sad chic – 10 looks define summer 2016

June 14, 2016, 6:02 am

≫ Next: Going to the new Tate Modern extension? Here's what to wear

≪ Previous: Buy of the day: blue shirts for Father's Day

The sun might not come out – but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress for it. Guardian writers reveal their top tips for the season, from Chloë Sevigny’s silly handbag to the return of Adidas Gazelles

Swan goals.

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Going to the new Tate Modern extension? Here's what to wear

June 15, 2016, 6:01 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: the boho blouse | Jess Cartner-Morley

≪ Previous: Giant swans, bare shoulders and sad chic – 10 looks define summer 2016

The Tate Modern open their new extension – the Switch House – this week. No dress codes here, but it’s worth thinking about co-ordinating with the grey concrete, the Picasso, Duchamp and Mondrian colour schemes, and Sadiq Khan, who was at the launch

A white-hot new London venue brings with it a dress code, spoken or unspoken. When Richard Caring’s Sexy Fish restaurant arrived in Mayfair last year, the look was all about Balmain, contouring and an over-the-knee boot. (And that was at lunch.) This weekend sees the unveiling of a different kind of landmark in the Tate Modern extension, which opens to the public on 17 June. And while one is, naturally, going to the Tate to see rather than be seen, there is no denying that a space that hosts Picasso, Matisse and Rothko sets the visual bar pretty high.

Oh, and the opening weekend features an installation created for the new live art space by Solange Knowles that (from what we have gleaned off Instagram) features dancers in Tiffany-blue bodysuits. This surely means the odds of Bey and Jay dropping in when she arrives in town for her Wembley dates are pretty high. Clearly, this is an outing for which you need to plan your look.

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What I wore this week: the boho blouse | Jess Cartner-Morley

June 17, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: How to look chic in all weathers (by a supermodel)

≪ Previous: Going to the new Tate Modern extension? Here's what to wear

Boho blouses are back (again)

Sometimes I don’t know why I bother. Week in, week out, I am here for you. These are the shoes you should be wearing, this is the colour you must stop wearing, this is why you’re not allowed to carry on wearing that nice comfy dress with the flattering sleeve length, here’s a new completely ludicrous outfit idea which you should start wearing because I SAY SO. It’s exhausting!

And what do I get for my efforts? I walk into a store and find it chock-full of near-carbon-copies of fashion it was chock-full of last summer, and possibly the summer before that, as if my ticker-tape updates were as nothing. Case in point: the boho blouse. The boho blouse is an open-necked summer top, halfway between a blouse and a kaftan. It is fitted at the shoulder, flaring to an A-line hem, with voluminous sleeves. It often has drawstring ties, and smocking or some sort of naive embroidery thing around the neckline. You know the one: you probably bought it four years ago.

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How to look chic in all weathers (by a supermodel)

June 19, 2016, 10:02 pm

≫ Next: The leotard as power uniform – from Wonder Woman to Rihanna

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: the boho blouse | Jess Cartner-Morley

Stella Tennant’s collection for Holland & Holland blends high fashion with dressing for the elements. So what does a Chanel muse wear in the rain?

If anyone can make tweed culottes happen, it is Stella Tennant. Even by the standards of someone who has been Karl Lagerfeld’s muse for two decades, she is having a moment. In the last few months, Tennant has opened the Chanel cruise show in Cuba, starred in the lookbook for the white-hot Balenciaga – and now, with former Vogue editor Isabella Cawdor, relaunched Holland & Holland, the Chanel-owned company that has been making shooting jackets and cashmere cardigans for country-house wardrobes for 181 years.

Right now, most of the fashion industry is waffling on about how many kaftans to pack for a yacht. Meanwhile, as I write this, rain falls steadily. Scotland-dwelling Tennant and Cawdor, however (Borders and Highlands, respectively) understand full well the challenges of dressing for drizzle in June. So, whether or not you are in the market for a weasel-fur gilet to wear for a grouse shoot, the new creative directors of Holland & Holland have some timely advice for looking chic in all weathers.

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The leotard as power uniform – from Wonder Woman to Rihanna

June 21, 2016, 8:54 am

≫ Next: The Man Repeller guide to summer style

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The look created by a 19th-century trapeze artist – equal parts athleticism and sex appeal – is still flying high today

In May 1861, a new act at the Alhambra theatre in Leicester Square was the talk of London. The audience screamed in delight as a young Frenchman performed his flying trapeze routine, leaping between three wires above their heads before eventually somersaulting to a mattress, where he took a bow. The performer’s talent allowed him to command an unheard-of fee, £180 a week, while his impressive musculature showcased in a tight one-piece garment earned him so many female fans that George Leybourne wrote a song about him:

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The Man Repeller guide to summer style

June 22, 2016, 10:04 pm

≫ Next: What I wore this week: black and white

≪ Previous: The leotard as power uniform – from Wonder Woman to Rihanna

One front-row girl crush plus one cult British label equals your wardrobe sorted

If you know who Man Repeller is, you will know that you want to dress a bit like her. If you don’t know who she is, you will have to take my word for it that you want to dress a bit like her, but it’s still true. Leandra Medine is the thinking woman’s girl crush, for her unexpected-but-laid-back wardrobe. The other day, scrolling through Instagram, I screengrabbed a photo of her wearing a sequin tank and Chloe tracksuit bottoms and a stripe shirt, as an aide-memoire that I should try and dress like that. OK, that came out creepier than it sounded in my head.

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What I wore this week: black and white

June 24, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: bright patches | Jess Cartner-Morley

≪ Previous: The Man Repeller guide to summer style

Just because you can wear colour, doesn’t mean you have to. Wearing monochrome in summer feels quietly subversive

Everyone looks better in black and white. This is, like, portrait photography 101, and why, if you stumble into some bad lighting, the monochrome Inkwell filter can save your Instagram selfie. It works for clothes, too.

It feels easier to wear colour in summer than it does in winter: a brightly printed dress is simpler to style when your legs are bare and you can throw on a blazer or denim jacket, depending on where you are going, than it is when you have to think about black tights or what on earth you’re going to do when your arms get cold. Then there’s the dubious logic of, “I can wear white/yellow/green only when I’ve got a tan, so now that I’ve got a tan, I’m wearing white/yellow/green for the next two weeks.” But just because you can wear colour, doesn’t mean you have to. Wearing monochrome in summer feels quietly subversive, when all around are in tropical brights and pastel rose prints.

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What I wore this week: bright patches | Jess Cartner-Morley

July 1, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Paris haute couture leaps into the 21st century

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: black and white

Sometimes, just one new piece will turn a standby into a new outfit

The white poplin shirt I’m wearing has fabric patches with popcorn, a lipsticked mouth, a drink, an ice-cream cone and the exclamation, TOP!

Let’s start with what this look is not about. It’s not about classic elegance or investment dressing. It’s not about timeless style, or the lifelong project of curating one’s own signature look. It is about a fashion hit, a quickfire pick-me-up. Now, this is tricky moral ground, and rightly so, because being conscious of buying clothes that will get multiple wears is an important part of consuming ethically. But if a white shirt with a difference can give fresh legs to a wardrobe when your sensible trousers and skirts are boring you to tears, then that makes sense as a responsible shopping strategy. Sometimes, when you feel like you’re sick of everything you own and have nothing to wear, all you need is one new piece that will turn old standbys into a new outfit.

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Paris haute couture leaps into the 21st century

July 3, 2016, 12:50 pm

≫ Next: Christian Dior gives a masterclass in maturity at Paris haute couture week

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: bright patches | Jess Cartner-Morley

Vetements’ revolutionary show, held in a department store, saw weird and wonderful display from alt-thinking label

Disruption is a vogue-ish word as overused in the modern fashion industry as “iconic” was in the last decade. But when evening wear at Paris haute couture fashion week means pink velour Juicy Couture palazzo pants worn with a promotional T-shirt for lager rather than ball gowns, then disruption is definitely happening.

The invitation to join the haute couture schedule extended to the alternative design collective Vetements, whose previous show featured Kanye West on the front row and repurposed Justin Bieber tour merchandise on the catwalk, is nothing short of revolutionary. Paris haute couture, which until now has maintained a defiantly pre-revolution Versailles image – think organza and corsetry – has taken a leap into the 21st century.

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Christian Dior gives a masterclass in maturity at Paris haute couture week

July 4, 2016, 11:16 am

≫ Next: Karl Lagerfeld taps the zeitgeist to put Chanel's atelier centre stage

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Interim designers Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier give message of unity before widely reported appointment of Maria Grazia Chiuri from Valentino

It is Paris haute couture week and all eyes are on the house of Christian Dior. But not, however, trained on either the catwalk collection or the designer duo responsible. Instead, the fashion industry awaits official confirmation of the widely reported appointment of Maria Grazia Chiuri to the role of creative director at Dior, which has been vacant since the departure last autumn of Raf Simons. An announcement is expected shortly after Valentino, for which Chiuri currently designs, presents its couture show on Wednesday.

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Karl Lagerfeld taps the zeitgeist to put Chanel's atelier centre stage

July 5, 2016, 7:52 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: the dancing lady emoji dress | Jess Cartner-Morlery

≪ Previous: Christian Dior gives a masterclass in maturity at Paris haute couture week

Designer shuns pop spectacle of previous years to celebrate his craft, in a Paris haute couture week notable for anti-elitist moves

In recent seasons, Chanel catwalk productions have transformed Paris’s Grand Palais into a supermarket, an airport, a Paris bistro, an iceberg, a fairground carousel, the interior of a jet, an art gallery and a casino. Karl Lagerfeld, the fashion house’s creative director, is a man for whom fashion is an endless parlour game, a visual feast of in-jokes. The supermarket show featured Coco-pop cereal, shopping baskets suspended from chain straps used for 2.55 bags, and Rihanna posing in a shopping trolley.

But for the Chanel haute couture catwalk show on Tuesday, Lagerfeld took fashion literally, for once. The setting was a recreation of the ateliers at the Rue Cambon where the collections are made, complete with desks and dummies, mirrors and pattern-cutting tables.

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What I wore this week: the dancing lady emoji dress | Jess Cartner-Morlery

July 8, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: pale all over | Jess Cartner-Morley

≪ Previous: Karl Lagerfeld taps the zeitgeist to put Chanel's atelier centre stage

Yes, 1954 had Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, 1967 had Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, but 2016 has the dancing lady emoji in her ruffled red dress

I don’t want to tell you what this look is inspired by. Because you have to admit this dress is pretty, yet I know you are going to hate me once I tell you whom I’m channelling. It’s going to be like that moment when someone compliments you on the miso clams you made for dinner and you say you found the recipe in a Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook, and they look as if you’d admitted you found the clams in a skip. You know the look. The one when you can tell by the eyes that someone is willing themselves not to wrinkle their nose.

The Coco Chanel quote about fashion reflecting the world we live in is a cliche, yes, but a cliche because it is true. If you had been asleep under a rock for a decade, and you woke up in 2016, the element of modern life that would strike you as even weirder than people still wearing skinny jeans would be how obsessed we are with our phones. So it makes sense, really, that the new style icon making her influence felt on the way we dress lives in our phones. Yes, 1954 had Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, 1967 had Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour; 2016, meanwhile, has the dancing lady emoji in her ruffled red dress.

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What I wore this week: pale all over | Jess Cartner-Morley

July 15, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: a mega frill | Jess Cartner-Morley

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: the dancing lady emoji dress | Jess Cartner-Morlery

What you do is pick a pale shade and wear more or less the same colour from top to toe. Including shoes and coat: that part is important

Not to wish the summer away or anything, but it is only a couple of weeks until the September fashion glossies land on newsagents’ shelves, their club sandwich thickness the first reminder that the back-to-school season will soon roll around. It is the one aspect of summer being finite that comes as a relief. An endless summer would be idyllic in pretty much all other ways, except the matter of what to wear.

Autumn clothes mark a return to solid ground. Proper shoes instead of sandals with snap-prone straps. The familiar rote layering of a jumper over a shirt, as reassuring as butter on toast. I’ve nothing against kaftans on the beach, but smart-ish daytime, which is a dress code most of us have to adhere to a lot of the time, is difficult in summer. What it boils down to is that when you dress lightweight, you look like a lightweight, and so summer dressing is never as easy as it should be. A shirtdress has that trenchcoat-ish thing of looking appealingly crisp and chic on the hanger or page, but somehow dissolving into a crumpled blob when you put it on.

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What I wore this week: a mega frill | Jess Cartner-Morley

July 22, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Trigger Article 50 on Breton tops – style tips for a strange summer

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: pale all over | Jess Cartner-Morley

A ruffle the width of a ribbon is apologetic and domestic, like piping on a cake. A mega-frill is anything but

Upspeak, when your sentences end on a rising note, gives whatever you say a hesitant, half-baked air. You make a statement, but then turn it into a question. Unmoored by a full stop, the words drift off, leaving you undermining your own opinion.

A cutesy ruffle or sweet little frill is the wardrobe equivalent of upspeak. It puts a question mark against what your otherwise sharp-edged outfit is saying about you. “I’m wearing a shirt… I guess? Maybe it’s a nightie? I’m not sure?” That is the message, when you choose a shirt with a ruffled neckline, or a lacy frill alongside the buttons.

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Trigger Article 50 on Breton tops – style tips for a strange summer

July 26, 2016, 10:16 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: the athleisure neckline | Jess Cartner-Morley

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: a mega frill | Jess Cartner-Morley

Fashion isn’t exempt from the upheavals of the past few months. With that in mind, it’s time to ditch your dungarees, lose the leopard print and grab a kaftan

The classic horizontal navy-and-white stripe T-shirt is the summer uniform of the 48%. The Breton is as at home in Cornwall or Norfolk as it is in France, as Boden as it as Bardot, and has always been more of a lifestyle statement than most wearers admit. It has a faint but distinct air of remainer refusenik about it now; and besides, its rosy-cheeked, wholesome vibe just isn’t right for a summer of discontent. I know this is tough to accept, guys, but the people have spoken. Calls for a further referendum on the subject are at this point unhelpful.

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What I wore this week: the athleisure neckline | Jess Cartner-Morley

July 29, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Gwyneth Paltrow has been at the forefront of pop culture for 20 years – I will miss her at Goop

≪ Previous: Trigger Article 50 on Breton tops – style tips for a strange summer

The shape is high at the neck but scooped at the sides, like a racer-back vest

The off-the-shoulder top, or cold-shoulder top, has been the headline story of this fashion season so far. The runaway success of the trend is all the more notable when you bear in mind all the things you can’t do in a cold-shoulder blouse. (Wear a comfortable bra, reach for any shelf above eye level, dance.) I think the explanation for its improbable triumph is that we really like a trend that lets us show some skin, but not in an overtly sexy way. Shoulders, being usually hidden but not actually rude, are perfect for this.

As you will have spotted, I am not wearing a cold-shoulder top today, because I have worn and written about them before and I am quite sure you have got the hang of them by now. I am wearing, instead, the post-cold-shoulder neckline. The shape is high at the neck but scooped at the sides, like a racer-back vest. It is smart but sporty, athleisure for evening.

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