I Need Tweed

Ever the schoolgirl, I approach this time of year full of yearning for the possibilities of the new term. I become obsessed with accumulating stationery, stockpiling propelling pencils and those notebooks you can buy in France with the days of the week down the side in ice cream colours. I think over my gains and losses, resolving to improve my character (God knows it needs it) indulging in a sort of emotional sharpening of my plimsolls, revving myself up for the requirements of the autumn season. At this time of year I always consider embarking on some high form of academic study: something meaty and taxing - the eight year psychoanalysts’ training, say - or a PHD on human consciousness and Henry James.

Then, naturally, my thoughts turn to uniforms. I’ve always loved them, and the freedom from indecision they provide. The idea of solving the what to wear problem once and for all is extremely appealing. Yet it’s not an inflexible dressing system. You can ring the changes with it, add something surprisingly anarchic or take something important away but what remains is the sense that you really know yourself and exactly what suits you. And yet it’s just possible I am now too old to look like a naughty school girl with high heels and jam smears providing the interesting accent to otherwise plain old shirts and skirts. I need something more grown up.

My inspiration for this academic year comes from the recent Television play about the life and loves of Philip Larkin. The assorted cast of librarians, whether blushing behind the returns desk or trampling the rugged moors were all herringbone tweed and yearning eyes. Libraries are intensely romantic places, especially university libraries with their rules and low lighting and their private book stacks. This caught my imagination.

It’s a lovely feeling when the fashions for the new season pretty much coincide with exactly what you want to be wearing and tweed is everywhere at the moment, from a blue and brown houdstooth Prada sling back court with leather rose detail to Anna Molinari’s slightly off the shoulder stretch herringbone tweed evening dress. It’s such a versatile garment I just had to buy it. What else could take a person from Jury Service at Southwark Crown Court to a formal dinner at Lambeth Palace?

I can think of no other fabric that expresses the conscientious and the carefree at the same time, prim and louche, lady and tramp. It’s one of those fabrics that’s almost impossible to date, sometimes you cant even say what colour it is. Yet it can be crisp as well as murky. Intrepid on Miss Marple, careless on the scottish hills, its properness punkishly open to subversion and sexy
too. Describing a party I attended ten years ago to my friend, I added “You must remember it - you were wearing that little tweed suit.” Well her new husband sat up immediately.

Of course buying tweed in the swealtering heat may seem unwise, but it’s already going like hotcakes. Miu Miu’s broad pleat skirts are perfect with Prada’s blue black merino intarsia jerseys, but these things are already in short supply. Charity shops are always good for tweed, particularly Oxfam in academic towns although I’ve known Oxford academics who wouldn’t have dreamed of buying their second hand tweeds form Oxfam -how vulgar, how worldly- no they preferred less well known chains, preferably independents.

And there’s always grandma if you’re lucky enough to have one.

As for me I may not have a course to go back to this September but I will be having some school gates life for the first time. Will my one and a half centimere above the knee tweed skirt and tailored jersey be considered acceptable attire? That’s another story.