Work Wear

THE dilemma when it comes to dressing for work is how to keep your fashion credentials and still dress appropriately.
If you’re a goth in your spare time, you’ll clearly have to leave yourdarker side at home. So what do you wear instead? It all depends on your office’s etiquette. The dress-code expected of a PA at a law firm will clearly differ from that required of an employee at a call centre that could frankly do the job in bedraggled bedwear. Women around a boardroom table might choose to dress in clothes akin to their male colleagues in a bid to assert who’s really wearing the trousers.But such a severe look isn’t necessary. Style Council holds fast to the truth that it is possible to revel in the joys of looking feminine and still be taken seriously.
So some useful pointers to note: if your workspace isn’t all about tailored suits and allows room for play, invest in a selection of separates - trousers, skirts tops and sweaters, means you can just reach for one of each and compose outfits daily without panic.
You can’t go wrong with crisp blouses or shirts. White is a good staple. But if that leaves you feeling flat, then play with stripes, different sleeve lengths, bold colours and prints.
On the point of skin and whether to bear or not, less is more. A suggestion of decolletage, or knee is preferable to a plunging neckline or balcony-bra’ed cleavage.
And if all else fails, on days you’re devoid of inspiraton, there’s always the fashion police’s choice du jour of black.
But remember to accessorise. Jewellery, a belt, scarf or jazzy handbag adds character and will stop you from looking like mime-artist Marcel Marceau.
And whatever you wear, a great manicure will render you impeccable.

Agyness Deyn

OUR resident fashionista took leave for New York so I had the job of filling in her Style Council column this week. The task was to scribe some advice on what to wear to work and rant over model Agyness Deyn.

The rant follows below:

SUPERMODEL Agyness Deyn has become fashion’s hottest twiglet on the catwalk and SC is getting pretty bored of the whole thing. She’s been fetishised on the fashion pages of every international style bible as an irrestible rags to riches maverick woman that’s swopped working in a Lancashire chip shop serving up chip butties and saveloys for the restof life in lieu of a career stomping catwalks of the world.

Granted, the fact that her determinedly tomboyish-looks have generated so much hype in an industry obsessed with an homogenous code on what it means to be feminine and sexy is to be commended.

But you can’t open a magazine without being greeted with that gangly frame, unkempt ragamuffin platinum crop and eighties day-glo clobber she cobbles together in a seemingly thrown-together fashion that’s become her signature style.

She’s the face of this, the body of that and meant to embody the spirit of pretty much everything else.

SC senses a situation of over-kill coming on.

The good news is that fashion is fickle so let’s hope that this is a trend isn’t one that lasts.

Postscript: Having said all of that, I've purposely chosen one of the hottest shots of her foraged off the web for the purposes of this blog. Hey, if you're going to add to the over-kill, you may as well enjoy it. So do.

Newsprint

I google-image searched the word newsprint.
And what have we here?
Is this an advert? Advertising what?
The fact that it’s sexy to read the papers?
Is it ironic?
A scantily clad woman just happens to be catching up on what’s going on in the world, while wearing stuff that makes you want to rip it off her and read too (while she gets back down on her hands and knees in servitude and tends to your pleasures).
Or is it another fine example of a woman’s body being fetishied as a commodity for the voyeuristic consumer?
I don’t like it.

And defy anyone that says their looking at her face.