If I ask you a personal question will you promise not to take it the wrong way? Great. Do you, by any chance, have a tendency to martyrdom? I only ask because, as Christmas season looms on the horizon, the female impulse to sacrifice our own pleasure or free time in the cause of doing things for others gets particularly intense. Writing cards to people you haven’t spoken to all year. Making sloe gin to give as gifts. Buying stocking presents for the dog. Filling your notes app with endless lists.
It is a complicated thing, martyrdom, because it comes from a good place, but if you don’t keep an eye on it, it gets not just pointless (spoiler alert: the dog doesn’t care) but counter-productive. I promise that friends would much rather you arrived at their drinks party in a brilliant mood clutching a bottle of warm supermarket prosecco than overtired and crabby with a homemade gift.
What does this have to do with fashion? With this very pretty lace blouse, which might be perfect for that party? A lot, actually. This is a time of year for dressing up. Dressing fancy. And key to enjoying the process of dressing up is not to think of dressing up as just another bullet point on your to do list. A party outfit should not be just another item to tick off, once you’ve sourced a recipe for vegan stuffing and rustled up a reindeer outfit for the school play.
Glamour can sometimes feel like yet more of the unseen but time-consuming stuff that women are expected to do and which men – not all men, but many men – ignore without a second thought. Remember friends’ kids’ birthdays, tick. Check fridge before work to see if you need to buy milk and salad in your lunch hour, tick. Iron party clothes and put on mascara, tick. But putting on a fabulous snowy lace blouse that would be utterly impractical for wearing to do chores can and should be something you do for yourself. This is an act of resistance to the impulse to martyrdom. Getting dressed up can be a way of setting useful boundaries around your right to be yourself, to have fun.
Sometimes fashion is about making an effort for other people. A great wedding guest outfit, for instance, is part of showing up as a friend, truly honouring someone else’s big day. But getting dressed up around party season, when festive spirit belongs to all of us, can be a way of asserting your right to your own pleasure and enjoyment. And this year in particular – when Miranda July’s All Fours has been on the bedside table of most every woman I know – the festive season feels like a good moment to remember that putting aside society’s expectations and paying attention to our own needs and desires is an important part of feeling alive.
Lace feels like a good place to start. As a fabric, it has a sense of occasion to it. There is a Prada catwalk show that I went to in Milan in 2008 that I think about approximately twice a week, that was all about lace. There was a shirt in heavy, caramel-toned Swiss lace, buttoned to the throat, tucked into a Fanta-orange pencil skirt in the same fabric. A transparent black lace dress, worn with a blue cotton shirt underneath as a slip. Backstage after that show, Miuccia Prada said she was obsessed with lace because it follows women through the landmarks of their lives: it is christening gowns, wedding dresses, bedroom lingerie, mourning wear. This feminine drama around lace gives it an energy that feels appropriate here. This is getting dressed up as an act of defiance when the mundanities of life are trying their best to overwhelm you.
My latest obsession is a lace-trimmed skirt. There is a midi-length slip skirt with a wavy lace trim at M&S in fuchsia or black (£39.50) that I have my eye on. But for now, I’m holding out with crossed fingers for a lace-trimmed black Christopher Kane miniskirt that I have wanted since I saw it at one of his shows a decade ago. Found it on eBay. And no, I’m not sharing that link, sorry. Sometimes fashion should be a purely selfish pleasure.
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Hair and makeup: Sophie Higginson using Sam McKnight and Victoria Beckham Beauty. Styling assistant: Sam Deaman. Blouse: £220 Essentiel Antwerp. Skirt, from a selection: cos.com. Earrings: £17.99 zara.com. Model: Meja at Milk.
