'If visuals had a volume dial, a wide stripe would be a ghetto blast'
Stripes are noisy. If visuals had a volume dial, a wide stripe would be a ghetto blast. You can't ignore them. Hey, no need to take a fashion editor's word for it – you can ask the urban planners, if you like, since the shoutiness of the stripe is the logic behind the zebra crossing. (To be fair, nature got there first: see wasps.)
This spring the stripe is finding its voice all over again. Because over the past few years, something strange has happened to the stripe: the Breton stripe, especially in the classic navy-and-white combo, has become ubiquitous. A garment that was once a strikingly bold utilitarian style statement (see Pablo Picasso) has become a school-run staple. A politely striped T-shirt, probably worn with jeans, boots, ponytail and gilet, is now the recognisable stylish-but-unthreatening uniform worn by models in adverts for hand creams and vacuum cleaners. Somewhere along the way, the sound of the stripe dissolved into white noise.
To refocus our attention, the catwalk has zoomed in on the stripe. Where small-scale stripes have become domesticated, so that the T-shirt now blends in with the soft furnishings, wide stripes retain the power to stop us in our tracks. Which is why I'm dubbing the new broad stripe the Zebra Crossing Stripe. See what I did there?
Stripes were supersized on the catwalk this season, at Marc Jacobs in New York and Jonathan Saunders in London. At Marc Jacobs they were monochrome, in dizzying combinations of horizontal and vertical, giving the show a 60s, Edie Sedgwick, tripped-out feel. At Jonathan Saunders there were blues and burgundies, diagonals and chevrons, lending a retro-sportswear feel.
What doesn't matter this season is whether thick stripes make you look thin, or fat stripes make you look short, or whatever. I mean, obviously, it will still matter to you, but there's no point shopping for this trend with those thoughts uppermost in your mind. Because if that's where your head's at, you'll never get this look right. To get bold stripes right, you've got to think big.
Top, £160, gerarddarel.com. Trousers, £40, asos.com. Heels, £670, gina.com.
• Jess wears top, £160, gerarddarel.com. Trousers, £40, asos.com. Heels, £670, Gina, gina.com.
Stylist: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Dani Richardson using Lancôme.