What I Wore This Month: The Brat Vs Demure Edition

Ok I lie. I'm being utterly facetious because this brat/demure thing is TEDIOUS.

If you haven’t heard about this modern day cultural phenomenon (!), I’ll scene set: Charlie XCX is the talented female artiste who inspired ‘Brat Summer’ - a style that is a little grimy and unkempt, giving off major don’t give a f**k energy, but in a glamorous way. It is surprisingly pleasing, kind of like modern punk. This has thrown ‘clean girl aesthetic’ advocates into a tailspin, militantly defending the ‘demure’ persona that they have been carefully cultivating since the new year. You know this demure look - tidy, neat, carries a fancy water bottle and never knowingly seen with either visible pores or chipped nail varnish. And so commences the tiktok scramble to declare which look we subscribe to, in scurries last seen when we all tried to decide which of the 4 main Sex and The City protagonist’s profile we fit.

Sigh.

Why do I find this supposed frivolity so tedious you may ask? Because according to what day of the week it is, or even time of day, I can go from demure, via incremental change, to brat, and maybe even back again. If you do too, more power to you. The innards of my make up bag - decidedly brat. The dress I wore last night, Oh so demure. And guess what? There are other adjectives. Like “irritated”. I’m not picking one of these two that have only come into prominence they passed the algorithm. There are ninety bajillion ways to be, so please can the internet, like the glossy magazine flowchart quizzes of yesteryear, stop trying to make women think that these false dichotomies are real.

ANYWAY…

I did one of these outfit diaries last month and y’all seemed to think it was a good idea so here we are again. However, this past few weeks I’ve been mainly 1)sick and 2)working from home, so it’s been on the casual side, with a few dinners and outings thrown in only more recently. Looking back - it’s fair to say that things got colourful. I guess once the weather finally got the summer memo I was all about getting the brighter hues and my legs out. I’m pining for the loss of summer already but trying to suppress my impatient-for-what-comes-next nature, and enjoy what we have left.

Let me know your favourites, or if you’d like links for aything or similar - I’ll try to share what I can although there is not a lot of newness to be had here.

WFH Life

A selection of outfits for WFH life, running errands and sorting life admin. The white shorts have been working particularly hard for me, and while they aren’t the perfect shape they are ok. Does the perfect shape of shorts exist? I’m heartened to learn from

Angharad Jones

, who is very much someone everyone should be following, that they are universally elusive. I feel like an A-line shape is the way forward, but where, oh where, are they to be found?

I also enjoyed pulling out the green and yellow PJ style pair, which are part of a matching set from Reiss many moons ago.

The jade green one-shoulder top (not Brat green - I forgot to mention that the Brat movement has its very own trademark colour, and font too) is Free People (I featured the orange version here). The “More Joy” T-shirt is a perennial favourite and is by Christopher Kane - on heavy discount via Flannels here.

Evenings Out

There have been a few…

I have observed through reflection rather than strategy, that I follow a pattern with dating that can only be described as “intermittent dating”. A kind of binge/restrict cycle, similar to what is described in disordered eating, but with dating. So after a long restriction, I am back out there (just via Raya, the rest of the apps are gone forever, but do keep your eyes peeled for Sunday’s post dedicated to the best and the worst of the apps from the past few years. Light entertainment at the expense of us singletons). OBVIOUSLY I will report back from these recent dates - feel free to encourage me in the comments - but spoiler: there is nothing to report. In fact I think I’m in danger of becoming a work bore, but let’s CIRCLE BACK (see?) to that at a later date.

Back to today and here are a few of the ensembles I have favoured for these ventures.

If you’ve been around a while you will recognise some of these pieces from here with the exception of the pink linen skirt, which I adore, and is from Jacquemus.

Ps - the parcel is not an avant garde clutch bag, I was going via the post office, wasn’t I.

Seeing cool people

Getting dressed up in the knowledge that I am off out to have a blast with cool people really is a balm for a battered soul. Permit me this dramatic sentence, I’ve been in self imposed solitary confinement and so dramatic prose seems like a fitting conduit back into normative society.

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That brings this sartorial update, and ranty time, to a close. Please do let me know if you liked this - I count 13 pictures of me, and the internet could be the richer for the absence of that methinks. Unless you tell me otherwise.

I’ll be back on Sunday with the best and worst from my time on the dating apps. And if that interests you, consider upgrading for the second part of that story - which will be a more serious take on what it REALLY feels like to date, at my time of day (i.e 40 years old and divorced - definitely Brat behaviour, that).

Until then

Big love

Una

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