case study: ladylike, with a twist

When I ran out this morning I was just starting on a theme that's been in my head for a few days: ever since I posted 'ooh la la' I've realised I'm actually a lot more lala than I'd thought.

Hope you don't mind that I'm posting Hedvig so much lately but we've been hanging out a lot and she just shows up in these outfits and they're such great examples of what I'm trying to say. I mean, I was trying to find shots of me in a look that I've been wearing all these years: vintage tweed ladylike jacket from the sixties with fur collar and 3/4 length sleeves, but worn over a girly dress, bare legs, ankle socks falling down, classic heels, pearls.. basically everything they were showing in the Style Section this weekend.

I feel like a lecturer, with a pointer, standing in front of the class but never mind:

If you analyse Hedvig's look, she's actually wearing a lot of masculine: white man's shirt (in fact I think it might even BE her Man's shirt), black leather biker jacket (Topshop), trousers, rather boyish Zara boots.. yet the touches of her curly hair, delicate features, the droopy drawer trousers - by Cos - have the softness of a Victorian skirt, and especially, the softness of the vintage fur scarf and ladylike Mulberry bag bring the balance more to the La then the Le side of the equation.




While trying to find the photos of that look, I stumbled on a series that I took quickly before Jaeger, last February London Fashion Week. It was actually the first moment I met Natalie (I don't know who the girl in the fur stole is - I think she's a friend tho - and that's a perfect example for me of those ladylike touches).*

And then because I had the word 'case' in my title (this is how my mind works: tangents split off all the time) I started thinking back to that college semester in Denmark, and to give you an idea how ancient I am, we had no iPods. My friend Dani and I were missing real music: records cost a fortune, and we'd queue for hours in the Copehhagen library to listen to a side of a chosen album, on headphones, looking out the window at the birds on the courtyard. So one night, in a crowded bar, we wrote out the words to 'A Case of You', on a paper napkin, because we missed our boyfriends. I started thinking how I'd like to style the Joni then with a bit of red lips and a top knot.

For you Young Ladies in the audience, check it out. Do you have a current singer who speaks to you like she did for us way back then? Oh and while I"m on a roll here: has anyone seen The Kids are Alright? That fabulously cringing scene where Annette Benning and Mark Rufalo start doing a Joni MItchell duet?



This was someone else- not the girl with Natalie - at that same cocktail party before the Jaeger show. It was as if everyone was dressing for the classic Jaeger, while the show itself was, of course, less retro, much edgier. We were essentially paying Homage.




A top knot, some fur, heels, pearls... it needn't be head to toe, but those classic, ladylike touches are something we all seem to be collectively craving these days. It's like cupcakes. Girls will, after all, be girls. And no matter how wild we are, let's hope we hold onto an element of ladylike behaviour. Or at the very least, remember the next day to send a nice thank you note.

. . .

*update from Natalie: "The girl in the stole is Lucy Williams - she's my ex-colleague and now Fashion Assistant at InStyle! She also has a blog: fashion me now"

Thanks Natalie! xo