Put your hand up if you’re reading this on a Saturday. Hi! OK, so: are you wearing a striped shirt? If the answer is yes, then please give yourself a round of applause because you are winning this fashion game. Not only have you cottoned on to striped shirts being cool right now, you have also correctly identified where they fit best into your wardrobe.
Which is at the weekend. On a Saturday morning, a boldly striped shirt does the job a Breton top did a few years ago. You can put it on with no fuss, with jeans and trainers and hoop earrings.
Or maybe a skirt and boots and a blazer. It’s easy, no drama, and you feel completely comfortable but confident. I don’t know about you, but on a weekend morning it’s not just laziness that keeps me from making a big effort.
I positively relish keeping it low key because getting dressed up gets my adrenaline going, when I really want to chill out. On the other hand, I also want to feel that if I bump into someone chic in the cinnamon bun queue I’m not going to need to hide. A shirt you might have had pegged as office-to-regatta is now in organic delis and art galleries Don’t feel bad if you missed the memo about a striped shirt now being a weekend piece.
It is some turnaround. The striped shirt was interchangeable, for a long time, with the stuffed shirt. It was 1980s City boys in braces shouting into their brick phones.
Quite a journey from there to being something you might wear to stand around in the playground with a coff.
