My Number 1 Piece Of Fashion Advice

If there’s one thing I get asked a lot as a fashion blogger (and I’m sure, if you are one too, you’ll get it as well!) it’s

What’s your number one piece of fashion advice?

Now I’m not ever to sure if the interviewer or publication want me to start spouting fountains of wisdom and nice little soundbites about how to dress, like I’m some kind of modern Trinny & Susannah. Like, small boobs should be hidden in polo-necks only, and avoid high-neck tops if you have big boobs (advice I have never ever followed, #uniboob4life!) But I’ll always disappoint them because I’m not Gok Wan with a waist belt (gutted). This recently happened for a little snippet on my number one piece of fashion advice for the Irish Times, where I just came out with the one piece of advice I felt like I could actually ever give someone.

It’s not that I’m not qualified to tell people the do’s and don’ts of getting dressed (an MA in fashion and working writing styling tips for designer-clothes at luxury department stores gives you a certain insight for sure), it’s just more that it feels a little pointless. Fashion advice can easily turn into fashion rules, and it’s an industry almost always linked with breaking the rules, so where’s the sense in that?!

Yes, I can tell you what to wear. I can be brutally honest and tell you you look like a melted KitKat in that vintage dress of yours. I can what’s hot and what’s not, where to get the best Gucci dupes or that Vetements is the reason why we’re all wearing silly (aka FABULOUS) long sleeves, but I can’t tell you how to feel when you wear clothes. And that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? How you feel. All the fashion advice I could ever give falls short if I tell someone to wear a fabulous embroidered dress because it’s cool when really, they quite frankly feel like a massive tit in it. Who am I to say what looks good and what doesn’t? Who care’s what looks good if you don’t really feel good? Am I talking too much about feelings and emotions? Feelings! Fashion feelings!

When you don’t feel confident in your clothes it’s painfully obvious. You get that shifty awkward eye thing. You probably get a little clammy and sweaty-upper-lip-alert situ going on. And you might as well be wearing a post it on your head that has “Wanker!” scrawled in a burning red Sharpie.

Menswear brand Oscar Jacobson sums this up really nicely:

When you feel what you are wearing, it seldom feels good. But when you don’t think about it, when you can walk, sit and move without having “something in the way”, that’s when you can relax. That’s when you can… “not give a damn”.

And there you have it. Wear what you want, so long as it makes you feel amazing that’s all that matters, no? Oh, and not give a damn, ofc.