Apologies for the silence the last couple weeks. Work’s been busier. I’ve had a couple of exciting commissions that have been a priority (I’m excited for you to read them). In London at least, barring a possible late flash of hot rays, the summer is over. It’s grey – the air wet with dread waiting to find some fresh magnolia paint to ruin.
September has marched upon us, spitting ash on everything. The streets are dust pans filled with silt, broken glass, charred ochre, miles of soft malevolence spun into the traffic of dusk, the pained emptiness of contemplating a life back inside. And, my word, a lot of people look like they’re down, bad. I think about leaving a lot but for the most part I don’t know where I’d go. And my friends keep me.
In a whatsapp message my old friend Joe recently described September as “the hangover of the annual calendar,” and he’s right, because like the penitence induced by a severe katzenjammer, it’s also when I decide to get my shit together.
It’s usually in this transition from summer to autumn that I start to fill up with fear, but of the personal kind. I’ve mentioned it plenty of times, I’m sure, how much I hate the cold, the inertia, the grey skies. I find it much more difficult to motivate myself into doing much at all.
That’s why the ritual of back-to-school recalibrations can feel so useful, even as a 35 year old: and so the last week I’ve stopped drinking, started cooking hearty meals, been exercising regularly, waking up early – all the little moments of control that help stave off the panic how we’ll heat our homes (kudos to Don’t Pay for their amazing work in trying to build a mass non-payment movement – get involved).
As I write this, I’m sat in an armchair with the backdoors of the flat open, in just a T-Shirt, not at all cold. We currently dread what hasn’t yet happened. And I’m looking at pictures of extremely well-dressed men on the internet, finding comfort in thinking about what to wear this autumn.
The poet Ralf Webb writes in his book Rotten Days in Late Summer that “Summer is a pink blur through the car windows.” And for all my express love of the season, the looks are spartan. You do battle with the beach, the party, the bar. It’s not about dressing sharp, but getting messy with enjoyment, soaking all your clothes in the wettest, stinkiest sweat your body can perspire. And then it’s over, before it began (Ralf has just started a substack, give him a follow).
What’s more, the pleasure of dressing in summer is in (to steal the words of Momtaza) doing the most with the least. The style of the hot months is in the sprezzatura flex of making it look like you’ve not done much at all. A couple of carefully placed accessories (I lost my prized Versace sunglasses at carnival, cry). Shorts, shirt, go.
In February I bought an amazing brown leather jacket for 5 euros from a thrift store in Barbes, Paris. I wore it every single day. I was thrilled to discover how amazing it looked with a high necked, dark-green Adidas tracksuit zipper underneath it, like Vincent Cassel in La Haine. It’s been gathering dust on my clothes rack for months now and I can’t wait to resuscitate it – a friend said it makes me look like a crooked detective, which is the fun of it.
In excitement, I bought myself a navy Burberry lambswool scarf for an extremely modest price of £20 this morning (every year I have to replenish my scarves, I’m down to one after losing three in the last year – the most depressing thing was just before covid when I left a cream Versace sport scarf in The Globe in Morning Lane, after a night of karaoke, what is it with me and Versace). What’s more, I’ve recently discovered the power of the colour of brown in a wardrobe, its utility in combinations. I’m very late to the party, sorry that I previously misunderstood your generous muckiness, brown – it’s perfect for supporting a bolder colour.
Autumn might be when everything dies, but it’s also when dressing well comes back to life. As the leaves start to come down, we layer up. The pleasures of dressing in the season of winding down and dispersal is in rediscovering the joys of combination once more, as we drape our bodies in the comforts that outside can’t provide.
Where summer is for the birds, autumn is for the fresh comfort of the looks; and I can’t wait to fall in love with fits again.
Here’s a few extra pictures in celebration of the layered, the co-ordinated, the comforting, the clashing, the bold, and the stylishly practical (with no particular logic or rationale beyond appreciation):