The past 24 hours have been absolute bliss, thanks to my parents and the generosity of some wonderful friends.
We stayed at the luxurious five-star Langham Hotel in a room overlooking the Yarra to celebrate hubby’s birthday, while the boys stayed with my parents. It was a gift from a fabulous couple who also happen to be our business partners.
Burgundy leather, and why coloured beats black
Speaking of leather, this burgundy pencil skirt is bang on trend. I was trotting around in it a few days ago and livened it up with a sequinned gold singlet, metallic mini heels and a cropped satin jacket.
If you are buying one leather skirt, I would make the case for colour over black, and I know that is the opposite of the usual advice.
Black leather is read by everybody as going out. It has one register and it is loud. Burgundy, oxblood, deep green, tan. These behave far more like a normal skirt. Nobody looks at a burgundy pencil skirt and immediately thinks nightclub, which means you can put it on for lunch, for work, for a birthday dinner, and it takes its cue from whatever you wear above it.
Burgundy in particular sits with almost everything: navy, camel, grey, cream, and every metallic there is. It is a neutral that most people have not noticed is a neutral.
The pencil shape is doing its own work here too. Leather is a stiff fabric, so a pencil skirt in leather holds its line all day rather than creasing across the lap the way a soft fabric would. It is one of the few materials that genuinely suits the shape.
Dressing up without a whole other outfit
And boy did we paint the town red. Indulged in a bit of shopping at the Crown Casino complex (can you believe I left empty-handed) and enjoyed a drink at a cafe overlooking the river before heading back to our room for a rest.
I decked myself out in a silver skirt and matching peplum top, and we dined on seafood at The Waterfront restaurant. Despite being sans children, my eyelids were drooping by 9.30pm and the plush hotel room and king-sized comfy bed beckoned.
The useful lesson from a night away is that you do not need two outfits. You need one that shifts.
A skirt like this goes to lunch with a plain knit and flats. The same skirt goes to dinner with a sequinned singlet and a heel. The skirt did not change, and it is the largest thing in the bag.
Pack one bottom, two tops, two pairs of shoes. That combination gives you four outfits from five items, and it fits in a small bag.
Make the second top the sparkly one. Sequins weigh nothing and take up no room, and they do more to change a look than anything else you could pack.
Take one jacket that works with everything. The cropped satin one here goes over both versions.
That is an overnight bag that covers a nice lunch, a proper dinner and the drive home, without a wheeled suitcase.
Sequins on a Saturday afternoon
The gold sequinned singlet under a satin jacket is doing something I do constantly and rarely explain.
Sequins are not evening wear. They became evening wear by convention, and the convention is worth breaking, because a sequinned singlet is one of the most useful things you can own. Under a jacket, only the neckline and a strip at the hem show, and what you get is a little shine at the collarbone rather than a whole shiny garment.
That is why it works at four in the afternoon by the Yarra and would work equally at dinner. Take the jacket off and the same outfit steps up a level without you going back to the room.
It is the same principle as the skater skirt outfit. The sparkle is the only loud thing, and everything around it stays quiet.
The one accessory that changes an outfit
But my favourite part of this outfit, apart from the shoes, is the baroque style Lovisa cuff. Here’s a better look.
A wide cuff is the most efficient piece of jewellery you can own, and hardly anyone wears one.
It sits where people actually look: hands move constantly, so a cuff is seen far more often than a necklace. It works with every neckline, including the high ones that defeat a necklace entirely. And a single substantial cuff reads as more deliberate than three delicate bracelets, because it looks like a decision rather than an accumulation.
If your outfit feels unfinished but you cannot work out where, try one wide cuff before you try anything else. It is nearly always the answer.
Shopping the city
Today was shopping day for this fashionista. It’s been a long time coming, but I finally made it into Zara in the Bourke St Mall, where there was wall-to-wall eye candy.
The prices were higher than I expected, but the variety of styles and sheer quantity of stock far exceeded what I anticipated. Despite that, all I picked up was a washed-out, ripped pair of grey jeans, which I’ll show you as soon as the weather cools off again.
Had some serious fun in the David Jones flagship store next door, which I’ll tell you about soon, it involves leather.
Vintage Christian Dior handbag.
(From April 2013. The Langham is still there; the burgundy skirt has long since done its dash.)
If you have a night away or an event coming up and the packing is the part that defeats you, that is a genuinely good use of a styling session: one bag, several outfits, worked out in advance.
And now you’re Looking Good Girls.
“For wisdom is better than jewels, and nothing desirable can compare with it,” Proverbs 8:11.