This year’s coming trends may force you to disregard about 90 per cent of everything you were ever taught about clothes.
Never wear horizontal stripes
Fashion puritans of yore dictated that stripes would only make you look about 10 pounds heavier. Then fashion’s craze for Breton tops happened and it paved the way for a full-blown explosion of stripes that started on the spring/summer ’11 runways and is coming to a store near you. Stripes are now perfectly fashionable on work suits (Prada) or slouchy tank-dresses (Jil Sander).
Never where white in winter
Ignore the stiff sartorial moralist tsk-tsking in your ear as you reach for that white dress in your closet. This month, we strongly encourage you to wear ivory. The non-colour will be bigger than big this year — nearly every brand showed a series of covetable white looks for spring/summer ’11. But it’s not limited to hot summer days. Alexander Wang and Celine are just a few brands that churned out ivory coats, trousers and sweaters that would look perfectly cool now.
Always wear a slip
Back in 1980, a young soon-to-be Princess Diana caused an uproar when paparazzi snapped her in the park. The sunlight revealed that she was wearing no slip to hide her legs beneath a sheer skirt. Today she’d be applauded for it. The floaty, see-through skirts and dresses headed our way this year are meant to show a little leg. Not that you need to show your panties to all the world – try silk shorts instead.
