Everyone looks better in black and white. This is, like, portrait photography 101, and why, if you stumble into some bad lighting, the monochrome Inkwell filter can save your Instagram selfie. It works for clothes, too.
It feels easier to wear colour in summer than it does in winter: a brightly printed dress is simpler to style when your legs are bare and you can throw on a blazer or denim jacket, depending on where you are going, than it is when you have to think about black tights or what on earth you’re going to do when your arms get cold. Then there’s the dubious logic of, “I can wear white/yellow/green only when I’ve got a tan, so now that I’ve got a tan, I’m wearing white/yellow/green for the next two weeks.” But just because you can wear colour, doesn’t mean you have to. Wearing monochrome in summer feels quietly subversive, when all around are in tropical brights and pastel rose prints.
Which to choose: black or white? Conventional wisdom tends to advise against wearing black when it’s hot on the grounds that black absorbs the heat of the sun, whereas white reflects it. But it’s more complicated than that, because black absorbs the heat radiated by your body, too, apparently, so will keep you cooler than white. White is summery in a pristine, upbeat, holiday-days-when-you-don’t-have-to-get-the-tube sense. While black is very chic in a French-girl-in-a-black-Eres-bikini way. White is more yacht-life; black is more Glastonbury.
You know what? I think we’ve had enough tortured, controversial decisions with conflicting arguments-in-favour to make this week. And why choose between black and white when you can wear them together for maximum impact. The black summer dress with white lace trim, as seen on the Céline catwalk, and on Dakota Johnson on her recent Vogue cover, is this season’s no-brainer going out look. Cooler than a tropical print, and way more flattering than tangerine, however tanned you are. Life is rarely black and white, but this dress is. For once, the decision is simple.
• Jess wears blazer, £60, topshop.com. Dress, £27.99, newlook.com. Shoes, £99, kurtgeiger.com.
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Laurence Close at Carol Hayes Management.
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