Corduroy makes you look intellectual. You can add a slim volume of poetry peeking out from a blazer pocket if you wish, but this probably labours the point. Just the fabric itself has enough of a campus-dwelling, Woody-Allen-watching vibe.
But like Woody Allen, corduroy doesn’t quite mean what it once did. Thirty five years ago, wearing a corduroy jacket meant something quite different (maverick anti-establishment) to wearing a tweed jacket (old duffer.) But that distinction is lost on anyone who is under about 35. Wearing cord and wearing tweed are now more or less interchangeable. Both mean: old person, or person who likes to spend time in the countryside, or person who reads actual physical books.
You want to own the brainy aspects of wearing corduroy, while cutting the pipe-smoking bit off at the pass. First, you need to be a bit careful with the brightly coloured stuff. Yellow or red corduroy looks fabulous in J Crew adverts but the effect that in your head was “Jenna Lyons throws autumnal Brooklyn brunch party” can wind up closer to Toad of Toad Hall once you factor in windblown messy hair and the sensible shoes you changed into having realised jewelled sandals weren’t all that practical in late October.
Admittedly, corduroy culottes, which I am wearing here, have a vaguely plus fours air to them which isn’t a million miles from Toad Hall. I’ve tried to mitigate this with the aid of a frilly white shirt. Whether it helps or hinders I’m not sure, but I’m going with it, because I think that another thing you have to avoid is the corduroy-and-jumper combination. A shirt is better, even if you wear a tunic jumper on top, or a polo neck underneath. Wearing corduroy trousers with a crewneck jumper kills your style credentials, because it suggests an overly literal approach to getting dressed, as if you either take all your fashion cues from the weather forecast (“Today it will be cold. Therefore I will wear warm, practical clothes”) or from whatever you can find in the dog basket. Corduroy can make you look clever. But only if you think it through.
• Jess wears ruffle top, £75, uterque.com. Cords, £46, urbanoutfitters.com. Heels, £75, dunelondon.com. Chair, £75, grahamandgreen.co.uk
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Laurence Close at Carol Hayes Management.
