Maeve Higgins: A missive from the trenches of high fashion

Raincoats and big woolly coats are useful, but nothing is as versatile and smart as a trench coat.

This column is not, let me repeat that, not an advice column. Whatever I write here must never be taken as instruction or even guidance, particularly this week.

I’m investigating what to wear for spring, and I expect I will get it entirely wrong. I look down at the evidence before me, my own outfit as I sit here at the kitchen table on my laptop. I’m wearing pyjama pants, a T-shirt with the band Nirvana on it, flip flops, and an Aran cardigan. Behind her huge sunglasses, Anna Wintour might grimace at such a sight. Or perhaps she would be in thrall to the clash and spontaneity of my early morning look.

I simply do not know; fashion is not something I pay much attention to or have any natural ability for. This is neither good nor bad; it’s simply a fact. I am, however, one of those old-fashioned people who insist on wearing clothes most of the time. I can identify what I like to wear and what I don’t like to wear. I live in New York City, one of the world’s fashion capitals, and after prolonged exposure to a trend, I can usually understand what is ‘in’ at the moment. I also really need new looks because these pyjama pants are eight years old, so it’s time to retire them. By retire them, I mean I will wear them exclusively in bed from now on.

Best three fashion choices

So, I turn my gaze toward the coming months and — please don’t sue the Irish Examiner or me — offer my take on the best three fashion choices to make this spring. Oh, and you can get all of these bits and pieces in secondhand shops; that way, they’ll be less expensive and less destructive for the environment.

Giant dresses: The obvious best thing about wearing a dress is that it’s just one garment. This means you only have to make one choice, saving you time that you can later squander by scrolling through Instagram, staring at photos of yourself, or simply gazing into the mirror. Last summer, I saw a woman floating onto a city bus in what appeared to be a huge ball gown. It was pink and gauzy and reminded me of candy floss and First Communions. 

I vaguely wondered if the woman was on her way to entertain children at a birthday party, but didn’t think much more about it until a week later when I saw a different woman in an equally oversized dress, this time in green, buying yogurt at the supermarket. After that, I began to see them everywhere on everyone. These enormous dresses are designed to be worn loose, so you simply buy them in your regular size, then marvel at the expanse of fabric you get to be swathed in. 

These dresses vary in length; I like them long, to my ankles. That way, I feel cosy and covered up, like a sickly princess afraid of the cold. 

I also like enormous puffy sleeves, almost like deflated wings, to balance out the enormity of the main dress. 

Anybody can wear a dress like this; you can be tiny or huge, with any body shape. In fact, these dresses have a nullifying effect on body types and make us all appear as equally comfortable jellyfish-like creatures slowly moving through our day.

Tiny jewellery: In contrast to the enormity of the dresses in fashion today, we have the tininess of the jewellery people like to wear. Surely you’ve noticed the thin, finely hammered rings, minute huggie earrings, and delicate chain necklaces doing the rounds of our various limbs and body parts. All of these trinkets can best be described as “barely there”. 

I don’t fully comprehend why we are deliberately wearing ornaments to decorate ourselves, but keeping that ornamentation so subtle that it can be challenging to see. Perhaps I am not meant to understand and must instead continue to obey this trend for practically invisible jewellery.

Also mystifying to me is the trend of wearing rings so small they do not fit over the knuckle of the finger. A dinky little ring clinging to the top third of a person’s finger makes the wearer look like the protagonist of a 1980s comedy film about a body swap with a child.

I think fondly of chunky jewellery, the kind of stuff people used to wear in the olden days. 

I do not mean a hundred years ago, rather the actual old days, thousands of years ago. I mean the stunning jewellery worn during the early Bronze Age. 

I still think about this wide, crescent-shaped gold necklace, called a lunula, that I saw in the National Museum of Ireland. They were not shy about showing off their wealth and power through jewellery back then; the lunula I saw was quite flashy, with concentric rows of dots, crosses, triangles, and zigzags etched into the surface. I still regret not buying it!

Trench coats: I read about the history of this coat in The Smithsonian Magazine, where it traces the enduring popularity of this type of coat to the First World War: “In past wars, British officers and soldiers alike wore greatcoats, long overcoats of serge, a thick woolen material, that were heavy even when dry; they were warm but unwieldy.

“But in the trenches, these were a liability: Too long; they were often caked with mud, making them even heavier, and, even without the soldiers’ standard equipment, were difficult to manoeuvre in. Soldiers in the trenches needed something that was shorter, lighter, more flexible, warm but ventilated, and still weatherproof. The trench coat, as it soon came to be known as, fit the bill perfectly.”

Who are we but soldiers in the various trenches of public transport, child-rearing, and supermarket aisles at 6.30pm with no idea of what to make for dinner? 

An insane comparison, I grant you, but these coats are handy. Raincoats and big woolly coats are useful too, but nothing is as versatile and smart as a trench coat.

You can move quickly and easily, and there is a belt that you can hook accessories onto, such as binoculars, map cases, a sword, or a pistol. Wait! That is advice from the First World War; an iPhone and a can of mace would be sufficient for a day out today. If all of that doesn’t convince you that this is the best coat, then remember: there is basically a cape attached to the shoulders of every good trench coat, giving a superhero edge to your outfit.

I shall go and change into my huge dress and minute accessories now, and put on my trench coat before I venture outside to look at the brand new blossoms on the cherry trees in my local park. I expect I will look quite fetching.

Although I did urge you at the beginning of this column not to listen to a word I say about fashion, I can’t control your choices. So perhaps you will adopt a similar style to the one I suggest, and if so, I’m telling you now — you’ll look wonderful!