When I’m not in the office, the last thing I want to wear is a button-up. If clothing correlated to the comics, a button-up would be Dilbert, the dutiful paper-pusher.
But like most New Yorkers, I have a closet the size of a mousetrap — and if you want to avoid a shopping addiction, remixing weekend and work clothes is a must.
What would Kate Moss wear if she had a desk job? That was my inspirational starting point for this look. I started with a peacock blue silk button-up that could easily pass for a luxury pajama top. Keen to ditch the office overtones, I poured on a healthy dosage of nonchalance for the rest of the outfit, including secondhand gray jeans and leather jacket.
I heartily recommend you hunt for luxury jeans and leather jackets in secondhand/consignment boutiques. Someone else has already done the “breaking in” — and after a quick trip to the dry cleaner, you get to reap the rewards.
One note about secondhand jeans: Most of the contemporary stock will be around 5 years old and low-rise, meaning the waistband will sit on your hips. This look was IT when Shakira ruled the airwaves, but most modern styles favor a higher-rise.
Honestly, low-rise jeans are the absolute worst. I don’t know how I managed to wear them for 10+ years. (God forbid you have to bend over to pick anything up.) My advice? Never omit a belt.
To round everything out, I debuted a new manicure. This design utilizes my favorite “spatter” technique. There are two easy steps:
- Paint your nails a strong base color. (I picked Royal by Revlon.)
- Then, cut a drinking straw in half (don’t use a bendy one) and dunk the straw into a bottle of gold polish. Blow the nail polish through the straw toward your nails. Clean up any errant spatters with a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover.
Voila! Nails that look like gift-wrapped presents.
