I spent a solid four years thinking beige was the colour of giving up. My nan had a beige three piece suite. My mum had beige curtains that matched nothing on purpose. So when I finally bought a beige A line skirt, it was under duress, for a wedding I was dreading, because everything else in the cupboard felt either too try hard or too much like fancy dress. That skirt got worn three times in the following fortnight, which for me is basically a personality change.
What makes a good one isn’t complicated but it’s easy to get wrong.
You want the flare to start from the waist properly, not sit flat for six inches and then panic into a swing at the hem, because that’s how you end up looking like you’re standing inside a lampshade. A bit of structure in the fabric matters more than people think, something with a little body to it holds the shape all day without you having to keep tugging it back into place.
I sat through an entire three hour dinner in mine last winter and stood up at the end looking exactly as I had when I sat down, which a colleague actually commented on, she said “how has that not creased” like I’d done something clever, when really the skirt had.
Length is the other thing. Just below the knee earns its keep far more than anything cropped at an awkward mid calf point that makes your legs look like they’ve been cut off mid sentence.
Styling wise, this is where beige stops being boring and starts being useful. It doesn’t fight with anything. Chunky knit and boots for the cold months, a crisp white shirt tucked in for anything that needs you to look vaguely responsible, a plain tee and trainers when you can’t be bothered but still need to leave the house looking like an adult. It works for a christening, a work thing, a lunch you agreed to too far in advance to remember why. Basically anywhere you need to look like you tried without anyone being able to prove it.
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