Do you feel repressed by work? Don’t like the boss, the office bitch, the long hours, the ultra-conservative but necessary work uniform? What about life? Steam-rolled into adulthood as soon as that high-school certificate is in your hands, forcing you to enroll in years of study, only to find yourself in a job that leaves you unfulfilled. Sound familiar? So outside of work hours you change as much of you as possible so that nothing resembles your weekday, working life. Starting with the wardrobe.
But what if you could bring a little of that personal anarchy into the workplace, replacing that staid, boring work uniform with something more delicately disheveled, something more like the real you? Dress Up’s winter collection, Dovetailed, encourages it. Another season again governed by emotion, this time the resistance to the ideals of a white collar career, this selectively concise range is a way to rebel against the work place, sartorially speaking. Almost like a great big “—- you!” to the establishment, without the political undertones.
Cuffs are slashed open, collars starched. Flesh is exposed at the waist and hemlines shorten. Give them something to talk about at the water cooler. And the colours! Rich, luscious plums. Warm dijon mustards. Shining sky blues. Delicate greys. Certainly more interesting, youthful and seditious than the usual black-and-white suiting requisite. It’s a modern, conceptual approach to soft tailoring - creating slight shifts in everyday garments - a really kind of blasé, effortless cool that we’ve come to expect with each Dress Up collection.
