In fashion as in life, there is nothing wrong with making mistakes, you just have to try not to keep making the same ones over and over again. A telltale sign that you are doing this is that you have a wardrobe full of clothes, but nothing to wear. Sound familiar?
In fashion, you pay for your errors in actual money, so boo-boos quickly add up. I have learned this the hard way, through being a leather idiot. It has taken me two decades to stop buying leather skirts and dresses that I don’t wear. That time I bought a leather jacket and realised I looked like Dennis Waterman rather than Debbie Harry was a bit of a downer, but not nearly as much as it was the time I did the same a year later. I did realise a long time ago that I can’t wear leather trousers, full stop, which is a blessing, because that would be a total money pit, as Theresa May’s £1,000 chocolate, flared PR hell testifies.
I finally feel as if my learning curve with leather (and fake leather, I’m not fussy) skirts might be headed in an upward trajectory. What I’ve learned is that a leather skirt works only in two ways. One option is to go all in: choose a va-va-voom leather skirt and wear it when you are going out-out. The other is to go against type, and wear a leather skirt that plays down the sauce. By which I mean a leather skirt that is as far away from the perched-on-a‑bar-stool school of leather skirt as you can imagine. My most successful leather skirts have been a not-too-tight, below-the-knee pencil (good for tucking cotton shirts into as stiff leather is great for keeping a smooth line with a tucked-in shirt) and an A-line black midi, which is pleasingly dramatic with a polo neck and earrings, while also warm and sturdily practical (the Breanne by LK Bennett, that one was – half price in the sale, last time I checked).
Last, but not least, it has dawned on me that fashion doesn’t need to be black. Or red. And that when you wear a leather skirt in, for instance, lilac, the leather becomes less of a Thing and the skirt becomes more wearable. I am no longer destined to make the same fashion mistakes over and over. Now I get to make new ones, which is much more fun.
• Jess wears polo neck, £55, cosstores.com. Vinyl skirt, £32, riverisland.com. Heels, £195, lkbennett.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Samantha Cooper at Carol Hayes Management
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