The Staple: A Fresh Challenge

I do not wear shirts. Since being forced to iron them for school some years ago, and then forced to wear them while working at a job I despised in the City, I've been off the collar and cuffs look. Aside from weddings, funerals, posh parties, interviews and the occasional fashion week, they hang forlornly in my wardrobe, complementing the colour-coded system, but never used.

Wearing a tie is just not for me (hence my hilarious attempts to be sartorial in the recent Hackett #10Men1City campaign). I loathe ironing shirts. The air tie (or as one friend once commented many years ago "the emperor's new clothes of styling") thing is just not me. Above all, I am not good with authority (if my last post wasn't clear enough), and kowtowing to the shirted authority is something I have, in my own small way, attempted to rebel against.

However, I also realise that this may sound a little childish. I am lucky enough to own quite a few rather nice shirts from posho places like Prada, Miu Miu, Paul & Joe and Liberty. Somehow I even have a custom-made one from Savile Row's Norton & Sons. Strange for an eschewer of the form.

When I rebooted this blog a couple of months ago, I posted the following onto Facebook: "It's been a while but I'm kinda bringing The Staple back! Ish. Still working out what I might do with it... suggestions/ criticism/ LOLZ welcome".

Brilliantly, one of my friends loves this sort of thing. Catherine Sweeney is a woman I have known since I was about nine years old, and she's a part of my awesome group of nine of us that are still fantastic friends since school. Probably, in fact, my most important friends in the world - even though I don't see them that often. Ms Sweeney though, loves an adventure, and a challenge (and is currently in Kenya, sporadically - and BRILLIANTLY - blogging at Twendevso), so she read this as a challenge. Luckily for me, she didn't really set any parameters, so I'm setting them for myself.

So, I'm going take her up on the challenge, and start wearing shirts again. It might not sound like a big thing to anyone that doesn't know me, but to those that do: when was the last time you saw me in a shirt?! Anyway, I've just counted in my wardrobe, and I have 20 - though the spangly Prada one may have to wait. The aim will be to wear a different shirt every week, and see how it goes. Will I become a committed shirt-wearer, or leave them gladly behind? Will anyone aside from Catherine care?

Don't worry btw, this isn't for charity (I'm more of a believer in giving money regularly to charity); there's no participation required. I'm going to do a thing, and then write about it. Hopefully it'll be vaguely interesting...

A disclaimer: Apologies if you find this deathly dull. I'm sure there's plenty happening on Buzzfeed.

Smart vs. Casual

This week in the office, we've been given the 'reward' of wearing casual clothes for the week. Not the bonus we were perhaps expecting (biscuits work best for me), but it has confused me as to the importance of smart clothes at work. On the one hand, it's good to have a pride in your appearance, and feel confident when arriving to work, especially if you have to deal with clients. But most people in the office have come into work in some form of smart/casual; replacing work trousers with jeans, and to some extent shoes with smart trainers, but keeping a smart top half (unlike me; I sit here in my new plaid trainers, a Silver Surfer Marvel t-shirt and a salmon-coloured cardigan). I guess I am to the younger end of the office spectrum, but there has not been the level of casuality I might have expected. And this has got me thinking; perhaps I should smarten up properly for work, and dress up more for the evenings. As much as I love comfy jeans and a slouchy jumper (my vintage Folk one is perfect), it's not really a 'going-out' look. One thing I have noticed as a Northerner living in London is that there's no real division here between day- and evening wear; the time taken to go home, change and have dinner which would be commonplace back home, is spurned here for more time down the pub. Both have their advantages, yes, but from a sartorial point of view, unless you are in the habit of changing at work, the weekend becomes the only time to experiment fully with your wardrobe. I guess that's why I'm sat here in a bright cardigan, and everyone else isn't; and why people on Brick Lane look quite so umpressive/odd on Sundays. So next week I'm going to endeavour to wear smarter clothes at work, and go a little further with my evening outfits. Doubtless this weekend's trip to the Manchester's Warehouse Project will make for an interesting outfit choice...
This week's Staples:
The Chandos pub in Covent Garden
Wearing the right shoes with the right outfit (more later)
Nigella's brilliant Express recipes
Tuesday night's great TV
Grace Jones new album, 'Hurricane'
Topman's sale (plaid boots + check short for £20 total)
'The Conformist' by Alberto Moravia