030 The case for dress codes, and horse girls
On dressing to a theme, Calvin Klein's personal style, gold watch authority, lacking mystique and always believing that people can surprise you.
Lately I’ve had cause to think about dress codes. Or to borrow from eternal style icon and fellow high maintenance queen, Kath Day-Knight, to team with the theme.
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I love a theme. Which is lucky because working in the watch industry means there are a lot of them. Usually it’s simply “business casual” which reads: navy suit. But occasionally it’s something rather more esoteric and often it comes with a mood board. This is the thing about watch events, one minute it’s a powerpoint and business casual and the next it’s a mariachi band playing Hey Ya (maybe one of the single greatest nights of my life).
In any case, dress codes are an opportunity to play. When they basically don’t exist anymore we need to embrace them more than ever - I think deep down we want to be told what to wear! Also, when a mariachi band comes on you just need to dance. One thing I have realised as I get older is that it’s way, way less embarrassing to just join in - whole heartedly - than it is to be too cool. But also, unlike Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, I have absolutely no mystique. CBK would never look at a shopping article online about how to get a look by the way. We’ve found every angle in and it’s time to let her and her perfect buttery blonde be. (Obviously since Love Story I have added to my canon of writing on her style, here). But I agree with my friend Ren that we need to be looking deeply at Calvin Klein’s personal style!
Would wear! Image Credit : David Turner/ WWD
Anyway, in the past few months I’ve googled F1 wags to copy their style for the Melbourne Grand Prix, worn a dress that made me feel like a mermaid (and like Ariel, kind of a slutty one!) and most fun, became for one day a horse girl.
The chance to wear a Driza-Bone jacket while riding a horse in a Byron Bay forest and then along a beach is not one I will soon forget. Dress for the life you want! Someone (look I can’t remember who) told me that Byron Bay is one of the few spiritual deposits of the world and honestly, on the trail ride I felt it. I felt more grounded and peaceful than I have felt in months. Maybe it was just two hours without my phone? Still, nature is healing and sometimes you really, truly need to go outside and touch grass. Speaking of woo woo, one time for a story I had a session with a light healer who told me I was operating on a higher plane! As I send emails and pack lunchboxes I wonder if I am really tapping into this power source?
A look directly paying homage to every F1 WAG I looked up.
A few other thoughts
At a work dinner I was seated next to the wonderful Penelope Seidler, who was as chic as you could ever hope to be. Last month I met a fabulous woman who was maybe in her ‘60s who gave me the kind of frank advice you just don’t come by very often! My main goal in life is to befriend more older women, I want to know what’s ahead.
For a few weeks in March I wore the Piaget Sixtie watch and I have to say that despite my earlier urgings to touch more grass and be more spiritual, life is really, really good with a gold watch. I felt authoritative. Maybe this is my higher being!?
On a plane I was listening into two older women (there’s a theme here) who were heading to a reunion of ‘the canteen mums’ and I know they were going to get up to no good! I’ve never wanted to invite myself along somewhere more.
Sometimes I am the older woman! In February I went to the concert of Esha Tewari who I met when she was five, and now she’s playing the Sydney Opera House and touring the world! Eleanor will be able to dine off her once giving her a piano lesson for the rest of her life. The crowd was mostly cute goth girls who really truly dressed for the theme, or dressed to be part of something and dressed to find themselves. I loved all of them.
Teddy on the walk to school, “wow Mama, you look like you live in a mansion!” My dream aesthetic perfectly surmised by my five year-old.
BOOKS
I think Lost Lambs might well be my favourite book of the year. I told my friend David last week that it might be my new barometer for whether I know I will like someone (luckily he liked it!). So funny and original and cutting and also a reminder that life is only tolerable when you find your people, however weird they are.
I gulped Belle Burden’s marriage/divorce memoir Strangers in one afternoon. OOOFFFFTTTTTTTTTT. How well do we really know anyone?
I also really loved David Szalay’s Flesh, so good on desire and people and power and the toll of all of it. The cool, detached tone might not be for everyone, but I found it compelling.
On a warmer note, The Correspondent was a delight. I only bought it, at an airport, because I was worried my book would not carry me through the weekend. I’m so glad I did. I laughed and cried. People can always surprise you, don’t give up on them!
Love,
Annie xx