I was trying on a cashmere jumper in Selfridges last autumn when I realised what the problem was. It cost more than my first car – there was a guilt-inducing wad of price tag still attached to the sleeve telling me so – and had been fashioned into the shape of a very flat, very beige rectangle. I studied myself awkwardly twisting around in the three-way mirror and decided, despite the luxurious wool and esteemed designer label, that I just looked… boring.
So dull in fact that I couldn’t remember what I wore underneath it. The Sales Assistant hovered at the edge of my vision clutching a heavily practised “oh wow I love how that suits you!” clipboard. But I knew better than to let her reach me just yet.
Because underneath that jumper, I was wearing leggings and a vest top. And to be completely honest, I’ve seen pensioners leave my local Tesco wearing more interesting outfits than this.
How on earth could something costing more than a grand look this sad?
It wasn’t the first time that I’d dropped serious cash on something only to feel distinctly underwhelmed by how I looked wearing it. Back in March I bought a beautiful blue blazer from my favourite designer. It was ludicrously expensive but then so was everything in that shop.
I paired it with my favourite jeans and got ready to wow myself head-first into that display window. Instead I looked like an accountant going to a conference on tax law. Again.
Then it hit me. Why do expensive clothes make me look so boring? It’s not the clothes.
Well, it kind of is – but not quite in the way that you think. We never style our expensive clothes as boldly as we should. We wear them with the safest option possible and neuter all sense of personality from them in the process.
For years I’ve written blogs/articles/features pontificating about capsule wardrobes, wardrobe staples, investment pieces, and how to make sure that everything you buy lasts you a lifetime. And yet here I was (along with probably thousands of other women), emptying my bank account on build-your-own burrito pricey fabrics just to stand in front of my wardrobe every morning wondering why nothing had any fucking sense of personality. Every expensive item I owned was treated like a precious newborn baby that I couldn’t bear to dress ‘casually’ lest I ruined it.
And the end result? Priceless pieces that had been reduced to making me look like an expensive illusion of myself. I’ve got a friend called Emma who knows her stuff when it comes to shopping well.
She has a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes from amazing designers; satin Equipment blouses that make her look like a Greek Goddess, impeccably cut trousers from Joseph that she could’ve drifted out of, jumpers and coats upon jumpers and coats from Jigsaw that would make any Scottish sheep farmer puff out their chest with pride. Yet any time she meets me for lunch she looks like she’s been sent by capsule wardrobe Satan himself. It’s a crime against aesthetics; spending that much money on clothes and then wearing them with zero sense of expression.
Literally every expensive item she owns could be lent online right now and we’d struggle to tell they weren’t hers. She knows exactly how to shop but can’t for the life of her work out how to style anything interestingly enough. It happens to me all the time.
Spend big money on a statement coat you can’t wait to wear everywhere, then chuck on your favourite jeans and a basic tee and call it a day. Be absolutely rubbish at actually styling your investments rather than just buying them. I realised that every time I do this I’m punishing my clothes for being too expensive.
I’m scared to dress them up too casually, or worry that something ‘nice’ will ‘spoil’ the look of my high-end accessory of choice. But what actually happens is I make my whole outfit look boring. Back in 2017 I spent a small fortune on a camel coloured coat by Max Mara.
By far the most I’d ever spent on an individual item it warranted several mental calculations of cost-per-wear based on how many years it would last me (hint: it was WAY more expensive per wear than my budget-friendly boyracer tee). As I was leaving the changing rooms that day nursing my battered bank account I realised something: it was possibly the softest most beautiful coat ever to grace my shoulders. And do you know what I wore it with for the first month I owned it?
Cream jumpers, black trousers, tan boots. Plain. Boring.
Wifi-less beige. I cared so much about making sure I didn’t “upset” the “look” of that coat that I made sure to make myself look as bland as possible by association. The real breakthrough came months later when I was doing my make-up one particularly grim January morning and frankly couldn’t be asked.
I pulled the coat around my shoulders, stuffed my favourite vintage band t-shirt under it and headed out the door, pairing it with some ripped-up jeans I’d stitched up myself, and a pair of cherry-red Dr Martens. I threw on a bright blue beanie I’d got from a charity shop for £3 and wandered down to the pub to meet some friends. I got home that night to more compliments than I think I’ve ever received. “you look AMAZING!” I was greeted with whenever I passed someone. “Love what you’re doing with that coat!” Not once did anyone comment on how brightly I was sabotaging my expensive gear.
I wore that coat everywhere that year. It occurred to me then that what people fail to realise when they spend big money on something is that they OWN IT NOW. The coat hadn’t magically become mine the second I slid it over my head, I made it mine by styling it as myself and not how I thought a Beulah jumper would like to be worn.
Ever since that day I’ve spotted time and time again how people – including myself – approach high-end clothing with fear. We’re so scared of “doing it wrong” that we stick to the same boring, expected match-ups with our expensive pieces over and over and over again. That’s no way to live.
Splashing out on clothes that are too fancy for your favourite old jeans is the fastest way to ensure you always look smart but never stand out. I learnt that lesson the hard way when I bought a beautiful cream Max Mara shirt last summer. It was so pricey I broke myself saving up for it, yet within months of owning it I barely touched it.
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Why? Because I was waiting for a “special occasion” to wear it. To wear good clothes well you have to break down those imaginary lines we construct in our heads.
That stupidly expensive jumper you thought looked boring with jeans? Wear it with a midi-skirt and trainers instead. That designer blazer that you feel oozes “office-worker?” Pair it with a graphic tee-shirt and some statement trousers.
My friend Jake learned this lesson when he once spent £800 on a Burberry trench coat, then refused to wear it with anything else but “smart” shirts and trousers for nearly a year. “Honestly it’s so embarrassing,” he laughed when we met up for brunch last week. “I looked like I was washed andpressed and set out to dry by my Mum in the 1950s.” He’d bought the coat to feel more himself but had effectively ended up dressing how Burberry wanted him to. Now he throws it over anything from band shirts to lumberjack tops. It’s become by far the most worn item in his wardrobe, simply because he isn’t scared to dress it like he was there when it was being designed.
Likewise, when we buy an entire suit from one designer we automatically assume we have to wear the trousers with the jacket, neats and squared away. Sure, it’ll look expensive, but it’ll also look like something Barney Rubble would wear to work. It was only when I realised that I could pair that fancy shirt with my old leather jeans and boots that it suddenly seemed THAT appealing to wear.
I finally owned that shirt rather than feeling like I was borrowing it from someone else. One of the biggest fashion crimes we can commit is buying items as “sets.” A matching trousers and jacket combo. Baggy jeans and an oversized shirt that are meant to be worn together.
It gives us an excuse to say “but they’re supposed to go together!” whenever we think about styling either of them with anything else. My colleague Sophia made this exact mistake when she finally treated herself to a skirt and jacket combo she’d had her eye on for years. She loved the structured blazer but found that whenever she wore it to work she just felt anonymous.
Like she was wearing someone else’s jacket and not actually expressing herself. The problem wasn’t Sophia – it was the jacket. She’d bought it to match the skirt she’d also bought from the same designer, and ended up wearing them together as if they were a uniform.
The breakthrough came when she bravely separated them. Wearing just the jacket with ripped jeans and vintage band shirts made that designer feel more her. Taking out the ‘rules’ of how Sophia ‘should’ wear that jacket not only made her look incredible, but also stopped her expensive coat from gathering dust at the back of her wardrobe only being worn with that skirt.
Expensive clothes often look boring because they don’t FIT. We hate ourselves for spending so much money on something and suddenly become blind to the fact itdoesn’t hug our bodies in all the right places. I’ll watch friends buy beautifully cut jeans that instantly bag at the knee or gap at the waist just because they’re from designer LABEL X.
Instead of returning them or adjusting them to fit, we wear them ‘because they’re supposed to be good quality?’ BIG MISTAKE. That cheap high-street jumper that fits you perfectly will ALWAYS look more expensive than that fancy designer top that doesn’t complement your shape. I did a little experiment recently comparing old photos of myself wearing a perfectly tailored Marks and Spencer suit that I’d had adjusted (cost £200ish) with an expensive designer suit I once bought and didn’t bother getting altered.
The difference was staggering. The cheaper suit looked so much more expensive, simply because it FIT. Speaking of tailoring; if there’s one styling hack that can transform any garment it’s getting it altered.
That blazer that hangs off your shoulders like a potato sack? Get it taken in at the waist. Those designer jeans that flop about your ankles?
Get them hemmed up. We’re willing to spend hundreds of pounds on clothes off the rack, yet balk at spending £30 getting them shaped how we want them too. It’s no coincidence that we only tend to get clothes altered when they’re too big – hence the name tailorizing – and not when they’re too small.
Fast fashion has conditioned us into accepting less-than-perfect fit because hey, at least the price was right? There’s no reason an expensive garment should fit badly, yet we’ll put up with it for months because the brand’s ‘trusted’ to do right. I bought a vintage Aquascutum coat from a charity shop down Brighton way a few years ago.
Two sizes too big and about half a metre too long, but the wool it was made from was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I spent more money having it tailored than the jacket itself had cost me but honestly – it was worth every penny. It’s the piece I get complimented on most because, despite being fifteen years old, it fits me better than most modern clothes I own.
Another embarrassing styling faux pas we can often make with expensive clothes is having that ‘not-in-the-house-but-not-out-to-lunch’ conundrum with certain garments. We buy a luxury dress then tell ourselves we can’t wear it just to the shops. “It’s too nice,” we say. “I should save that for when I go out.” That’s exactly what my friend does with her expensive cashmere cardigan.
She owns a stunning jumper that cost her £275 on sale but only wears it about twice a year. “I’m saving it!” She always tells me when I point out she has nothing else nice to wear.
But realistically, what for? If the best you can say about your luxury clothes is that you’ve only worn them twice then you’re doing it wrong. I decided a few months ago that if I love something, I’ll wear it wherever.
That pricey knit isn’t getting whiffled around in my wardrobe just so I can wear it to the cinema. My favourite leather boots are my go-to whenever I need to pop to the shops. Now that I regularly throw my good clothes on for mundane activities I find myself dressing them up more creatively because I don’t fear ruining them.
Trust me, I know people who dress this way. They’re the ones trolling around Instagram in vintage T-shirts and Prada trousers. They mix high-street with high-end and wear their luxury clothes more often than their budget buys.
Spending more money on your clothes doesn’t automatically make you stylish. But paying attention to how you style them definitely does.
