DRESSING UP, DRESSING DOWN

You’re hardworking, versatile and multi-talented. You’re flexible even under pressing and impossible circumstances. Why should your clothes be any different? This season, we’re expecting more from the way we treat our minds, bodies, and the clothes we choose to spend on. Here, we turn the spotlight on three pieces that do it all, from three of our favourite brands.

All together now: no more single-use, single-occasion, one-time wear purchases!

The Balmain girl is the fashion industry incarnate. She knows the evolution of Rousteing’s collections by heart; sports sculptural, haute-couture shoulders with sartorial ease; and teases tweed dresses without making them look dated.

Tweed’s autumnal affiliation is rendered null with her arsenal of woven raffia wares: slip-on espadrilles, tote bags and ribbon-tousled hats for easy weekday outings.

For the Sunday races, she’s all about full-bodied commitment: summer whites and tweed-on-tweed with jewellery-adjacent details on open-toe sandals.

The A WANG girl is fun, irreverent — she inscribed the manual for off-duty style. She is dressed down by default, breezing through sun-drenched days in shiny slip dresses, white baby tees and frayed indigo denim — thrifted, of course. She prefers worn-in leather jackets to heavy knits, but loves the dramatic split cuffs on this cardigan.

For a casual Monday gallery hop, she pairs this with her faithful blue washed jeans, clunky leather oxfords, and a teeny cardholder that’s big enough for the essentials: credit cards, ID, and a few folded bills.

On Saturdays, evening cocktail dates at cosy saloons with dress codes call for something special. She leans into the drama with a body-skimming mini skirt, sheer black tights, crystal-encrusted sandals, and a glossy clutch to boot.

The SAINT LAURENT girl is a suit savant. She likes her shoulders padded, strong and 80s-inspired; despises elasticated waistbands. She championed Tribute heels until they returned to the fashion fore. To some, casual means loungewear; to her, casual never falls short of smart. There hasn’t been a blazer that she has ever met that she hasn’t adored.

She takes high-low styling seriously. Items comfortably folded in another person’s athleisure drawer — think cycling shorts, box-white sneakers and an endlessly deep carryall — are, for her, easy companions for the trusty blazer.

Dressed up, she dons a SAINT LAURENT suit, towering leather sandals and an equally suitable attitude. Naturally.