Part One of Madame Suggia's List of Wardrobe Essentials

Inspired by this post by the always-superfantastic Twistie http://manolobig.com/2008/10/19/twisties-list-of-ten-wardrobe-essentials/ at Manolo for the Big Girl, I thought I'd work out my very own list of wardrobe essentials.

Like Twistie, I'm feeling a little miffed...or even, verklempt at Tim Gunn's list

(ha! see what I did there? Verklempt! A Tim-Gunnism! Ok, moving on...)

Now, whilst I bow to no-one in my sheer adoration and blind worship of Mr. Gunn, I do think his list is a little bit limiting. It doesn't take into account things like, say, the climate you live in, or the life you lead, or even, the kind of person you are.

OK, it's not as limiting as Stacey & Clinton's one-style-fits all mantra (Stacey! Your hair is fabulous! Clinton! errrmmmm....whatever...)

But there are a few items that I just can't get behind.

For instance-a trench coat? Not for Madame S!

I live in a sub-tropical climate, where we endure, sorry, enjoy about 360 days of hotter-than-a-hot-thing sun a year. So really, no need for a trench coat. Or any other coat for that matter. If it rains, I'll use an umbrella, or more likely (Brits are kinda used to the rain...oh yeah, we're hardcore about the whole precipitation business!) I'll merely accept getting wet. It's just water, not hydrochloric acid...

And ballet flats? Not going to happen in my shoe closet anytime soon, with the pancake-flat, long, thin feet! Madame S does not wish to look as though her feet are, in fact, stylishly attired golf clubs.

Anyhow, for what it's worth, here's the first part of my small-but-perfectly-formed List of Wardrobe Essentials.

I'm being quite dictatorial here-think of me as a benign dictator-and these items may or may not resonate with you, but these are the items that work for me, over and over and over again...

1) A 3-piece black suit. Preferably, a fitted jacket, pencil skirt to just below the knee and some killer pants, hemmed to wear with heels. Needs to be in a year-round fabric...something like tropical weight wool, or a silk or wool crepe. Even better with just a smidge of Lycra.

Now, even if you never wear suits/jackets/skirts/pants/black...you need these. And I'll tell you why.

Formal suit, for interviews, court appearances (!) or, regrettably, funerals?

Skirt & Jacket over a neat shirt, blouse or skinny sweater or T-shirt. Trust me on this, interviews are stressful, court appearances scary, and funerals just miserable-and loved ones do have this annoying habit of shuffling off this mortal coil quite unexpectedly-so having the fail-safe, totally appropriate outfit hanging in your closet, clean, pressed & ready to go takes a huge amount of stress off you at a potentially devastating time.

I learnt this the hard way, shopping on the fly for a black suit for my Dad's funeral-tricky to find something suitable when you're drowning in grief and snot.

But also!

Jacket over jeans (see below!) and T-shirt with pashmina (yes! see below!) gives a fall-winter-spring outfit for almost every occasion. Change bags/footwear/pashmina color as per the season, add a coat for winter, you're good.

Skirt with T-shirt/shirt/blouse/skinny sweater with denim jacket (oh yeah, you know it's below!)-as above, add pashmina or scarf, change bag & footwear to suit and that's another 3-season wonder.

Pants with sparkly top (see below! see how everything's working together?) plus metallic heels (yeah!) equals fail-safe evening outfit.

Last but by no means least, if you've chosen a blazer-type jacket, you can wear the pants or the skirt with just the jacket (and a push-up bra, ooh la la!) for a fabulous evening outfit.

2) Denim jacket. Can be a classic shape, all battered and vintage-y, can be a dark-rinse blazer-type, or a biker-jacket style. Personally, I wouldn't wear embroidered denim, just because it cuts down on what you can mix it with; also, I like to wear vast amounts of brooches on mine-but whatever rocks your world.

Use to dress down all tailored pants & skirts, to toughen up a girly-girly dress or just to give off a rock-chic vibe.

3) Pashmina-as many as you like, in colors of your choice. I read a few years ago that the pashmina was 'out'. That any fashionista worth her it-bag was flinging her pashminas to the back of the closet, where they would lay in an unloved and unworn heap.

Buuuuuuuullllshiiiiiiiiittttt.

A truly fabulous item, these babies can be worn as a scarf, a shawl, a head wrap, a sarong or a blanket. I say a blanket, because I'm pretty sure that you'd rather look like this (fabulous first 3 pics purloined from the always-wonderful Sartorialist, http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/, the final blot on the face of humanity from The Slanket, http://www.theslanket.com/ , may the good Lord have mercy on their dark, dark souls.)

or thisor this...

than like this...
...because really, there's just no excuse for this, none whatsoever...

They have further uses-folded up into a pillow, as a luxurious baby blankie or change-mat (preferably in that order), or when tied just so, an emergency hobo-style bag. Anyhow, loving the pashminas! Never board an aeroplane, or be admitted to hospital, or go away for any kind of overnight trip without one.

4) Sparkly top. This can honestly be any shape or style of top-cami, T-shirt, blouse, whatever-personally, I'll be making a version of this totally gorgeous and (I think) wearable sequined tank from thegeniusthatisdriesvannoten (SS2007! see how directional he is!)

or maybe even this fabby little number by 3.1 Philip Lim

I'll be wearing my lovely new top with white pants and shirt or t-shirt, or with my black suit pants or skirt, or with my jeans....basically as often as is humanly possible without becoming heartily sick of it.

Pics stolen, sorry, taken from http://www.style.com/fashionshows and I'll be using a rather spectacular gunmetal sequined fabric I scored on eBay- $40 for 2 1/2 yards of 45" wide sequined fabulousness! Lined in grey silk crepe-de-chine-oh yeah, fabric is bought & ready to go.

Yeah feeling pretty smug there-just call me Mrs Smug from Smugtown, State of Smug, USA, because if I'm really really really careful I might juuuust get a slim skirt out of this fabric too...not to be worn together you understand, but it will give me item number ...

5) Sparkly skirt....maybe my version of this-yaaaay for Dries again! Really, the man's a genius...
or this by 3.1 Philip Lim..actually, this color is about right for my faaaaabuous fabric...

Now here's the thing...I'm a fat girl. Call it full-figured, call it curvy, call it plus-sized...all adds up to the same thing. And as a life-long fat girl, I've always sort-of followed the conventional wisdom that says, hey fat girl! no bright colors! no white or cream! and certainly nothing sparkly, because you're F-A-T.

To which I say, finally, after years of passing up the fashion goodies...

I. Don't. Care.

Don't give a crap. Truly. I shall make those glorious sequined separates, I shall wear them-actually, I shall rock the hell out of them-and in the unlikely event that I'm ever accosted by some super-annuated so-called style guru who tells me that I 'shouldn't'...I shall tell them, ever so politely and in my best, tea-with-the-queen English accent, to fuck-right-off.

So I'll be wearing the skirt with, oooh, maybe a super-fine slouchy cashmere sweater, or just a white t-shirt and metallic heels for evening, or with my denim jacket just because I can.

6) Jeans. I'm so over bootcuts I can't begin to tell you-after 15 or so years at the top of the jeans tree they are starting to look done to death, so I'm going for a pair of trouser jeans, probably these spiffy little numbers

from Lane Bryant-I'll wear them with the aforementioned sparkly top, or a white shirt or t-shirt, or a snuggly cardigan...and for just 44 and a half of your fine American dollars!

http://www.lanebryant.com/pagebuilder/lane_bryant_product_page?pagesize=3&my_nav=apparel_accessories&cat=bottoms&subcat=see%20all&cid=0000010177

Part two to follow...

Two Great Nations Divided By One Language

So before we got down to business fashion-wise, I thought it would be smart to go through a few of the strange-but-true differences between American English and...well... English English.

Because although the USA and the UK share many, many things, there are times when the two nations are so wide apart that we really are, as the title suggests, Two Great Nations Divided By One Language.

It's not quite "you say tom-ay-toe, I say tom-ah-toe", but what the hell!

USA: Button-Down; in the UK: Shirt

USA: Shirt: in the UK: T-Shirt (I once asked a groovy young teen who worked for me, why do you call your T-Shirt a 'shirt?' In best nuh-uuh teen-speak she said, " It's too much effort to say Teeeee-Shirt". It's official, the future is fucked.

USA: Tank; in the UK: Armoured Amphibious Vehicle, rather like this gnarly example






OR it can mean a Vest...sleeveless, scoop-necked T-shirt, often worn by children, or wizened old codgers for an extra layer of winter warmth, as an item of underwear. Shudderingly made in 'string' for wear by said codgers. Or punks. Also worn, in solid cotton interlock, as an actual garment by those racy youngsters with toned arms.

A Tank Top is a weirdly British garment; basically a knitted Tank or Vest, it should ideally be knitted by your adoring Mother or (better still) Grandmother, and should, for real authenticity, have a few dropped stitches, dodgy colors and be made from the unravelled wool from your Dad or Grandad's oldest jumper (see below). Dimly remembered fashion history tells me that these first came into prominence during WW1, as a warm but sleeveless layer for the tank crews to wear under their uniforms, but I could be talking out of my big fat behind (see also bum, ass, below) here. Anyhow, tanks tops have a marvellously retro vibe when worn in a beautifully styled Polo ad by a stunningly chisel-jawed hunk. In real life, they are worn almost exclusively by snot-wreathed small boys or emotionally-retarded, (oooh! Guy Ritchie reference!) socially inept, living-at-home-with-their-mothers-at-the-age-of-38 kidults with bad skin and a propensity for geek-dom.

USA: Sweater; UK: Jumper, whereas, USA: Jumper; UK: Pinafore.

USA: Vest; UK: Waistcoat. Not Weskit. Not ever Weskit. Just so we're clear.

USA: Garter Belt; UK: Suspenders...sometimes (unnecessarily and quite horribly) shortened to "suzzies".

USA: Suspenders; UK Braces, but also, USA: Retainers; UK: Braces...see how us Brits are so marvellously economical with our language? The same word, but with two completely different meanings. Genius!

I suspect the whole garter belt/suspenders/braces/retainers confusion could be quite amusing if you were a cross-dressing dentist whose straight alter-ego was Gordon Gecko,

otherwise it's just a royal pain in the backside.



USA: Pants; UK: Trousers...in the UK, pants are strictly female underwear. Or a mild insult, as in, that (insert event, purchase or life experience here) was pants.

USA: Thong; UK: G-string, yet another type of underwear. Also known as dental floss for the bum, which is Brit-speak for ass. Which term is more or less charming, Ass or Bum? Discuss.

USA: Sportswear, which appears to mean any clothing that is not full-on cocktail, evening, bridal or swimwear. UK: Sportswear: clothes you wear to do sports in. Usually containing a dizzyingly high proportion of man-mad fibres.

USA: Active Wear: clothes you wear to do sports in. UK: unless you are an aristo, and therefore have loads of free time to indulge in sporty pursuits, Brits are largely inactive, therefore we have no 'active wear', unless you count tennis/polo/horsey/golf/rugby/cricket gear, which has been brilliantly re-packaged and sold back to us by American companies like Ralph Lauren. Score for the New World!

Finally, USA: Pasties, a stick-on hide-the-nipple device worn by burlesque dancers. And Posh Spice. In the UK, Pasties: usually, a Cornish Pasty-a pastry-encased, semi-circular savoury snack or meal, containing minced lamb, potato and carrots. Or, for the veggies, a cheese and onion version! Both equally vile and leaden on the stomach.

There are, of course, many (many!) more language anomalies between our two fabulous nations, mainly involving words for genitalia, coitus, or, more often, lavatorial functions. I'll be more than happy to enlighten you in the future...