Upspeak, when your sentences end on a rising note, gives whatever you say a hesitant, half-baked air. You make a statement, but then turn it into a question. Unmoored by a full stop, the words drift off, leaving you undermining your own opinion.
A cutesy ruffle or sweet little frill is the wardrobe equivalent of upspeak. It puts a question mark against what your otherwise sharp-edged outfit is saying about you. “I’m wearing a shirt… I guess? Maybe it’s a nightie? I’m not sure?” That is the message, when you choose a shirt with a ruffled neckline, or a lacy frill alongside the buttons.
Often we send these signals without being conscious of what we are doing. For example: when we, like, interrupt our own sentences with the word “like” at random intervals, it breaks up the cadence and makes us sound, like, incohorent and rambling. It’s a seemingly benign, thoughtless self-sabotage, like eating cheese in front of the fridge before you go to bed.
So, think before you frill. If you do frill, then scale up. A ruffle the width of a ribbon is apologetic and domestic, like piping on a cake. A mega-frill is anything but. Queen Elizabeth I knew this: her ruffs were super-frilly, super-sized, and 100% alpha. I am not suggesting you wear a ruff, by the way, I am just pointing out that the ruff had nothing in common with the frilly bonnet.
Mini-frills are doing you no favours. But power dressing doesn’t need to mean androgyny. Mega-frills – power puffs, if you will – are the new power dressing. The frill on this blouse is on the scale of one of those queenly ruffs, which is why I am into it. In a summer in which every other shoulder is befrilled, a top like this raises you above the pack. A frill this size is not a full stop at the end of your sentence, but more like an exclamation mark. It is operatic, rather than warbling. And, to underline the point, you can wear these kind of frills with defiantly unfrilly pieces. Nothing like a pair of tracksuit bottoms for keeping your feet on the ground, sartorially speaking.
• Jess wears top, £295, by Anna October, from matchesfashion.com. Trousers, £129, meandem.com. Shoes, £85, dunelondon.com. Chair, £225, habitat.co.uk.
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Laurence Close at Carol Hayes Management
