Leaning into Comfort

5 minute read

I remember looking at women about 15 years ago that wore a specific type of drapey boutique outfit with these built-up flat shoes that every woman over 40 seemed to wear and I didn’t get it at all. I was in my mid-20s and seemed to be wearing only clothes that were guaranteed to cause the most discomfort possible. Low rise denim, thongs, sky-high shoes and nothing that ever seemed warm enough. Thongs were the first to go – I was never really on board with them – and thankfully fashion has come a long way from the ultra-low rise bootcut jeans that were the mainstay of my early 2000s wardrobe.

Young women now know the joy of wearing trainers to the pub or, hopefully, they will again soon. Our heels also had platforms, so you moved through the city like Bambi through the forest. You couldn’t walk very fast, and you certainly couldn’t run to escape danger, maybe that was the point of them.

When I saw the drapey outfits and the rubber-soled flat shoes I would equate them to a woman who had gotten old and given up. What I didn’t realise then was that those women had indeed gotten older, but they weren’t old, and they certainly hadn’t given up. They had just realised the beauty of dressing for themselves.

The early 2000s were a tricky time in women’s fashion, we weren’t too far past the ladette culture of the late 90s or Britney asking to be hit one more time while wearing a school uniform. Grim. In 2006 fashion designer and style icon Victoria Beckham was hanging out at the World Cup with Cheryl Cole, both wearing tiny denim shorts, even tinier vests and vertiginous sandals. 2006 – doesn’t seem that long ago does it?

Everything we wore seemed to be for the male gaze and though I’m glad I didn’t grow up in a world of social media I am jealous of today’s 20-something women and their freedom from the tyranny of the Wonderbra.

Now I’m in my 40s, I know the beauty of comfort. I don’t know if it’s my age or the year we’ve lived through, but I have developed a sort of uniform that I’m really happy with and comfortable in. I wear a variation of the same thing every day. Often, it’s literally the same thing until it’s time to peel them off and throw them in the never-ending pile of washing that lives in my utility room.

My uniform is this: a pair of jeans (high waisted hurrah), a very soft knit, an Aran cardigan, some nice socks and a pair of Birkenstocks. If I’m leaving the house the birks get replaced with Chelsea boots or trainers depending on the weather and everything gets topped with a good coat, a cashmere beanie and a pair of leather gloves. And that is it.

In the summer I will make subtle but significant changes. The knit will become a Breton tee, on sunny days the top and jeans will be swapped for a loose-fitting midi dress and everything will still be worn with my beloved cardi because, Ireland.

I’m busy. I’m many things to many people. Mum, writer, chef, cleaner, human trampoline. I need my clothes to be washable, warm, durable and I need them to be comfortable because life is hard enough without adding sweaty, scratchy fabrics into the mix.

Though there has been little to celebrate in the last year, the way Irish people have embraced the shop local message is truly one thing to be happy about. The importance of supporting smaller, independent Irish business was understood early in the pandemic which has resulted in the survival of some brilliant fashion stores in the face of what could have been a disastrous year. There is evidence too, of a shift in the way we shop. Sustainability has been bandied around for a few years now but it seems to have taken a pandemic to really get people to realise that the way many of us have been consuming fashion has to end both for our own good and the good of the planet.

Wendy Crawford runs Scout, a much-loved fashion and homewares store in Dublin’s Temple Bar. Thankfully the last 12 months haven’t been all bad for her business.

“I closed our doors a year ago feeling so uncertain about our survival and I never for a moment thought it possible we could thrive in such an environment, but somehow we did. The support from our customers has been amazing and the space the pandemic gave us, allowed us to expand our range and rethink our visual strategy and how we delivered it.”

Wendy, who has been running Scout since 2008, can see that shift in shopping behaviours and the move towards more considered purchases.

“I think people are thinking about what they are buying and also the importance of who they are buying from. I also think that as people are home so much, perhaps they’re becoming more acutely aware of ‘stuff’ and the effect it has on your surroundings and space. Whatever you buy, you have to very much live with it so you’re going to consider each purchase quite carefully.”

Scout is where my beloved Aran cardigan is from and the store is well known for its cool and comfortable aesthetic which has served them well during the pandemic. Wendy is hopeful that it’s a trend that will last far longer than Covid.

“Our overall buying agenda for the store has always been about comfortable, good quality clothing that can be worn daily, in different ways, across the seasons so I think we were quite lucky with our buying over the past year. We didn’t have to change our direction all that drastically. Having worked for years as a personal stylist, I always had to work very hard to get people to spend less on occasion wear and more on the pieces they wear every day and to place a higher value in their everyday wardrobe. I think Covid has maybe helped that thought process along for sure. Most days you’ll find me in a combination of Sideline trousers and some nice knitwear from YMC or a nice Aran cardi. With the arrival of spring, I’m really loving Le Bon Shoppe T-shirts and fun socks right now too! They’re really lovely earthy colours and all made with super soft, organic cottons which are great for layering with interest.”

Buying better, being comfortable, getting rid of the ugly “work clothes” that we hate wearing will all, hopefully, be a by-product of our new working from home lives. We know that there are wardrobes full of heels that will never be worn again, skirts from Next that have been abandoned now that we’re only seen from the waist up on Zoom.

As for me, I’m leaning so far into comfortable dressing that I race up the stairs to change into pyjamas as soon as dinner is over so I can sit on the couch under a blanket for the rest of the evening but I’m not sure if that’s age, the pandemic or just my personality.

Leaning into Comfort

5 minute read

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