The Best Beige Knitted Tops Handpicked by Claire

I spent years thinking beige was a colour for people who’d given up. My mother wore a lot of it in the nineties and I decided, somewhere around age eleven, that it meant surrender. I was wrong, and I’d like to address beige directly for a second: I’m sorry, you were never the problem, I just hadn’t seen you done properly yet.

A good beige knitted top earns its place by doing something a white or navy one can’t, it makes your skin look like it’s had a holiday even when you haven’t been further than the school run. The trick is the shade itself, there’s a whole spectrum between oatmeal and biscuit and putty, and the right one for you depends entirely on whether you’re warm or cool underneath, which sounds fussy but isn’t, you just hold it up to your face in daylight and you’ll know. The knit matters too.

A fine, close gauge sits under a blazer without adding bulk. A chunkier one wants to be seen on its own, doing the whole outfit’s talking.

Styling wise, this is the top that makes tailoring feel less like armour. Under a sharp trouser suit it softens the whole thing, no shirt collar, no fuss.

With denim it goes proper off duty, especially with a gold hoop and a boot, my colleague Priya wore hers with white jeans to a Sunday lunch and someone asked where she’d been on holiday, she hadn’t been anywhere, it was just the top. Layer it under a leather jacket in the bits of the year that can’t decide what season they’re in, or knot it at the front with a midi skirt for something that reads dressed up without trying.

Occasion wise it’s quietly brilliant for the moments that don’t have a strict dress code but still matter, a work presentation, a lunch with someone you’re trying to impress, a Tuesday that needs to feel like more than a Tuesday. It photographs well, it travels without creasing in a way I’ve tested properly on a delayed flight, and it never fights with anything else you’re wearing, which after years of loud prints feels like a genuinely restful thing to put on your body.