I spent about three years thinking batwing tops were a costume for women who cycle to Pilates and own a ceramic teapot collection. Wrong. Properly, embarrassingly wrong. The one that changed my mind was a jersey version I bought to be difficult in an argument with myself, and I wore it on a train to Leeds where the air conditioning was doing something violent, and it was the only thing that day that didn’t feel like a hostage situation against my own arms.
Here’s what a good one actually does. It gives you drama through the sleeve and nothing else, so the body of the top can stay narrow and the whole thing reads as considered rather than like you’re smuggling a duvet to a friend’s house.
The armhole to hem line is the entire game. Too much fabric pooling at the waist and you get the village fete energy I mentioned earlier, all billow and no shape. The good ones taper back in properly, often with a cuff or a band at the wrist, so there’s a silhouette hiding under the drama rather than just more drama.
Fabric matters more than colour here.
A cheap batwing top in a stiff synthetic stands away from your body like it’s trying to leave the room. The ones worth having move when you move, which sounds obvious until you own the other kind and spend an evening looking like a badly rigged tent.
Styling wise, this is not a top that wants company from your bottom half. Something narrow, a slim trouser, a pencil skirt, jeans that mean business, so the volume has somewhere to go visually instead of just adding to more volume. Tuck the front, leave the back loose, and suddenly you’ve got a shape rather than a shroud. A structured blazer over the top, sleeves pushed up, does something quite good too, it stops the whole look floating off.
Occasion wise, this earns its place at the dressier end of a working week, the lunch that’s actually a meeting, the gallery opening you’re arriving at straight from a desk. It photographs well from the front and disguises a multitude of sins from the side, which is more of a compliment than it sounds.
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