Western styling is one of the trends that teeter on the edge of fancy dress. Take the outfit I am wearing here. In my head it was going to be Sissy Spacek in Badlands, but I fear I may have ended up as Woody from Toy Story.
I’m not giving up on it, though. There is something about the western aesthetic that is very appealing. It makes a very utilitarian way of dressing romantic. A shirt with pointed collars and press-stud front pockets; dark denim layered over rib polo necks; high-waisted jeans with chunky heeled boots: these are clothes you could wear to take the car for an MOT while feeling a little like you were on a different kind of road trip.
There are lots of days when practical dressing is the only option. When you need to wear shoes you can walk in, sturdy fabrics that won’t snag, colours that won’t show every speck of dust. Days when you need to be able to wolf down your lunch and brush the crumbs off your lap rather than have to gingerly watch each forkful for hazards. These can be weekend days or dressed-down work days. But just because you can’t dress up doesn’t mean your look can’t have a bit of ambition, something to make the point that you have the phone clamped to your ear while you are dropping off a bag at the charity shop because you are on hold to book in your sofa delivery, but you are still au fait with fashion and popular culture, thank you very much.
Western-style denim, dark and dressy, has been back on the style radar since it walked down Raf Simons’ first Calvin Klein catwalk, just over a year ago. Touches of western styling were around before that. A white polo neck worn under a denim shirt has been a cool-girl Saturday morning look for a while. When the weather warms up, we’ll all be digging out the prairie-style blouses with drawstring necklines and embroidered sleeves that we’ve been collecting for three summers now. Cowboy boots have been making a comeback since last autumn. Knotting a colourful silk scarf like a bandana with a buttoned-up shirt has bedded in as a go-to front row styling trick. White ankle boots poking out from the bottom of a pair of jeans.
Easy there, cowboy. Not all of those at once, please. You have to keep this look homely, rather than glamorous. No lip gloss, no cut-offs and, whatever you do, absolutely no diamante or rhinestones. Otherwise it will all go pop-country really fast. The appeal of this look should be the grainy, super-8 kind of romance, not Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake in matching denim kind. Nothing too fancy, or it’s too fancy dress.
• Jess wears shirt, £42, jeans, £40, and boots, £85, all topshop.com.
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Samantha Cooper at Carol Hayes Management.
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