Lace is the ideal piece to lift your autumn wardrobe, offering a flimsy, flirty, and unconventional alternative to heavy knitwear. The best fillip for your shoulder-season style is not a thick layer, but the opposite: something with a frill, that has the thrill of lingerie.
The appeal of lace
Lace is beautiful and rich in romance and storytelling – it is the stuff of weddings and funerals, after all. But it is also about sex, and sex appeal is key to what is excellent about lace. This is useful if you are dressing for a date, but oddly, it is also true if you are dressing for a meeting. Not because you are trying to get off with your colleagues, but because lace reminds people of lingerie, which reminds them of skin, which reminds them that you are a human being.
In summer, when you aren't wearing very much, lace can be a bit too straight-up saucy. This time of year, when you can slip a lace-edged camisole under a light jacket, or team a lace-trim skirt with a chunky sweater, is the best time to wear lace. You get a wink to the knicker drawer without putting it all out there.
Designer inspiration
Miuccia Prada is the queen of this. At Miu Miu's autumn show, amid the sensible coats and pencil skirts, there were peachy little camisoles and filmy dresses with scalloped underlayers. Worn with proper skirts, coats and gloves, it looked less like undressing than an intriguing chink in the armour.
At Saint Laurent in Paris, barely there lace skirts were balanced by teddy-bear plush faux-fur jackets. At Khaite in New York, flutters of lace came spliced with leather jackets or trousers. This sort of mismatch makes lace sing. Lace with more lace is lingerie; lace with something that looks capable of surviving a motorcycle accident is an outfit.
How to wear it
The key phrase here is a bit of lace. You don't want to look as though there's a wedding cake waiting for you in the next room. A couple of centimetres peeking from beneath a jumper is plenty. If you're wearing a deep V-neck sweater, a lace-trimmed bra that accidentally-on-purpose is just visible at the neckline can be excellent. The point is the contrast: wool and skin, sensible and suggestive, covered-up with a wink to being the opposite.
Knitwear will get its flowers soon enough, when it is too cold for leaving buttons undone. But in these last moments before the sun disappears till March, let a bit of lace shine.
