Wintergreen

Dressing in times of difficulty

These are not easy times for anyone, and by these, I actually mean these past years, as well as this specific moment in time. I’m spared right now from the worldwide angst by familial worry, but I know that outside my privileged (privileged in the sense that feeling sad that a 92 year old who has lived a rich and well-loved life may be near the end allows us to reflect on past happinesses as well as deal with present grief) pain-bubble, there are others suffering far more than me.

When my father was first taken into hospital, I threw on the same uniform of jeans and a blue cashmere sweater every day. Comfortable and practical, it is in any case my weekend/holiday wear of choice. But after a couple of days it struck me that the best way to raise the spirits of the person in hospital was maybe not to turn up every day looking frazzled and as though you had slept in your clothes. So although I wasn’t going to work, I started dressing as though I was, and because I’m an art teacher, my clothes were still comfortable and practical, which meant I had all the ease of the jeans without looking as though I was as all over the place as I was.

All the London family came over and I moved a rail of clothes out of the room that doubles as my dressing room and spare room into my bedroom. On the rail I put the things I had been wearing: wool dresses, cords, sweaters. Every day, whether I was going to work or to the hospital or sitting with my mother, I grabbed something off the rail - not without thinking about whether I wanted to wear a cardigan or a sweater, but without having to think about if I had something to go with whatever I was grabbing - and dressed in clothes I already knew I liked wearing. In the evenings we largely ate together, so I was never home to wash, and so I just worked my way through the rail, did a wash overnight when I ran out of underwear, and started again. I didn’t miss anything that was still in the spare room because everything I had with me was doing its job of having my back, and letting me still feel like me.

This is, in its purest sense, effortless dressing. There is no effort because the choices were all already made, I put in the effort beforehand, when I was buying clothes that I knew worked for my body and my lifestyle, in fabrics and colours I enjoyed wearing. Between the 12 months of a no-buy and then starting a new one 5 months later, I did buy stuff: wool dresses, cords, cardigans, thin cashmere-blend tops to wear under the knits. Everything I bought was something I already knew I would want to wear. I had no pull towards newness or novelty, I just wanted things that have always been a part of my wardrobe.

I mean, I did get one completely new thing, and it was one of my Christmas presents from my daughter. It’s a hood and scarf attached, from Rifò, one of my favourite sustainable Italian brands, in their Forest Green colour, which is a deep, warm shade, similar to Not Perfect Linen’s Juniper Green. I have worn this every single day since I got it. I cannot tell you the joy I feel when I casually flip up my hood at the slightest hint of rain or chill.

Apart from that though, my wardrobe focus has been very much on things I know I already love. And I’m talking things I know I love from way, way back. A cosy pair of cords were a staple of my childhood, a tight pair of micro cords a treat in my teens. One of my farthest-back memories is going shopping with my mother and coming home with a knitted dress (red, flared skirt, high collar). These are comfort clothes for the decades.

This is the point, though, isn’t it? The bones of the clothes are what we remember, the emotions they evoke. I have had, and still have, more thrilling, unique, exciting pieces of clothing. But there is still a common thread in the every day clothes. The cuts, the colours, the fabrics of my comfort clothes have changed over the decades, but the the idea of them hasn’t. The notion that you need a good pair of thick cords and a chunky sweater didn’t spring fully formed from my head: I’m pretty sure it was planted there by my mother, while another - as yet unresolved - notion that a pair of tweed trousers would fulfil the same function as the cords certainly came from books, where I’m sure they would be paired with a hand-knit sweater and possibly some brogues (of course I have had iterations of this outfit at various points in the past).

The wool dresses are the same: the thought of winter dressing always evokes the same issue from some long-ago magazine shoot, of a model standing in a snowy forest looking chic in a knitted dress and wool tights, topped and tailed with a wooly hat and long boots (something in there was definitely fairisle - possibly more than one item), looking not at all chilly without a proper coat. So on the mornings when I wake up feeling that the mere act of choosing which top with which bottom is too much, just pulling on a dress and a pair of thick warm tights is enough to make me feel as though I’ve got my shit together even when I palpably haven’t.

I do not long for spring. I absolutely do long for this endless rain to stop (it is pouring down as I speak, straight through my leaky roof). I want to keep wearing these clothes for as long as I can.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to subscribe, comment, like or share. Next week, I should be writing about how my travel capsule wardrobe worked in my favourite city.