Last week I bought one of the absolute best things I’ve bought all year. I genuinely don’t know what I was doing with my life before I had it. And the most amazing thing is that this purchase happened as a result of my own complete ineptitude: through self-created chaos, I found Wardrobe Nirvana.
But let us rewind a little and set the scene, so that I can give you at least eight hundred words of loosely-related backstory…
I have a fashion-related confession: I am tremendously bad at packing for work trips. All’s fine if I’m throwing things into a case for a holiday or for a short break that is purely for my own enjoyment: no problem. But throw in a fancy social media dinner, an important meeting with a client or any sort of appointment where I feel my appearance needs to be impressive, and I completely go to pieces. I forget the basic principles of dressing. I pack the most ridiculous and inappropriate items of clothing, none of which go together, all of which are random, little-worn pieces that have been at the back of the wardrobe in my spare room for years because I have no idea what to do with them.
And my issues aren’t just limited to packing for trips; even leaving the house seems to pose a problem when it comes to putting on clothes. I’m quite good at stylish dressing if I don’t think I’m being scrutinised, that my outfit is inconsequential, but if I’m under any sort of pressure to look good then I totally crumble.
Which is why I can manage to look like a trendy Parisian taste-maker when I have a dental appointment, or need to pop to Sainsbury’s for milk, but send me down a red carpet and it will appear as though I got dressed in the late nineties. In the dark.
I outdid myself this week with my bad packing. I know there are bigger things to worry about in life, but honestly, my bizarre suitcase contents have caused me no end of inconveniences, including (in no particular order) having to take a detour into central London to find socks, almost expiring from heat exhaustion because the only top I packed was a cashmere roll-neck (too early! So premature!) and managing to only pack trousers with particularly invasive gusset seams.
So it’s been an all-time low for me, this week, in terms of suitcase-packing success. I packed the wrong footwear, I forgot to bring a nice dress (I’m currently on book tour) and – we’re finally getting around to the point of this post – in a moment of sheer haste and late-for-the-train panic I managed to leave the house without packing a single vest top, t-shirt or soft, comfy bra. NO CASUAL OPTIONS!
Idiot.
I was going from home straight to a drinks event at my publisher’s, and then on to a dinner and, because I usually travel in all of my comfortable clothes (no tight gussets, a crop top rather than a proper bra, a soft-as-clouds t-shirt, a versatile cashmere cardigan that can be fastened or not therefore covering all weather scenarios) I completely forgot to pack these most basic of requirements.
It wasn’t until the next morning when I threw everything from my suitcase, searching for the travel outfit, that I realised my error. I would have to go to a meeting wearing a smothering roll-neck with nothing beneath it save for a torturous, underwired, full-support bra.
(I need to talk at length about this, too, the “proper bra vs soft comfy bra” thing. There’s a lot to unpack. Because I have to say that there’s no soft, unstructured bra that can give me anywhere near the same impressive shape as an underwired one that has been designed to fit my exact chest-size/cup-size combo. With good separation between the boobs, so that I actually look as though I do have boobs and not some bulky great big monoblock stuck to the front of my body. There are soft bras that go a long way towards creating miraculous shape, but none that can fully replace a proper over-shoulder-boulder-holder. We will come back to this.)
To recap, because I’m going off on every single tangent imaginable, here, I found myself in the middle of a busy work week away from home with no clothing that was even vaguely acceptable for a person who needs to spend 80% of her time in garments that feel like cotton wool. It was virtually unbearable. I needed to find a softish bra, pronto, and I needed to buy a vest top or a t-shirt with a good drape and a workable length (ie not cropped) and a cut that would allow for the wide straps of the aforementioned softish bra.
No mean feat, especially considering I only had eighteen minutes to complete the challenge.
But do you know what happened? I popped into the first shop that I went past on the left (I was on Regent Street, in case you’re wondering) and bought myself the thing I mentioned at the start of this post, all of those lightyears ago. A thing so uniquely perfect and brilliant that I would buy it in every colour, if I liked any of the other colours.
It is this, my magnificent purchase: the Uniqlo Ribbed Sleeveless Bra Top*. Apparently it’s a Heattech Extra-Warm one, which is a bonus going into autumn, but I hadn’t picked up on that little feature at point of purchase. What I had picked up on, when I pulled this item over my head in the changing room, was that it was a garment of complete and utter genius. A well-fitting, soft-as-feathers vest top, cut in at the shoulders for that sexy sort of GI Jane vibe, and with absolutely no need for a bra underneath!
Read that again.
No need for a bra. Because it had one built in the top. What new level of fashion joy had I unwittingly unlocked? I felt so instantly good in this vest top that I decided I’d wear it for that night’s book signing event. An event! Wearing a vest top! With no bra!
I include the following pictures to show you the really very decent shape that the in-built bra provides via the moulded cups. Completely unexpected. Yes, you can see the outline of the cups through the fabric but you’d be able to see most bras, too – this just does away with the lumps and bumps you get with a traditional bra and also completely eradicates the need for bra straps.
Because, let’s face it: bra straps and vest tops are not the best of friends. Vest tops are always cut just that weeny bit too far in to accommodate the everyday bra. And who can be arsed with a racerback bra? Not I! There’s something about the feeling of those criss-crossed bits and the pinching-in near the nape that my senses can’t handle.
And so, the Uniqlo bra top. Solves a thousand problems. I tried a size small and medium, could have gone small but opted for the medium because it just felt less clingy. I’m a 32DD, for reference, and a UK10/12. I rather like the colourway I bought, which Uniqlo call “brown” but I see as more of a khaki. Didn’t go for either of the other colours, because I’m trying to steer away from buying black all the time and the white one would last seven minutes upon my catastrophic person. I would love it in a baby pink and a good blue, maybe a denim sort of shade, but quite frankly I am open to any colourful additions, because this vest top is a gamechanger. No visible bra, just a smooth-as-you-like shape and a top that looks great with jeans, worn under suit jackets and trousers and can be chucked on with tracksuit bottoms at the weekend.
If Uniqlo expanded this range, copied the shapes and colours available on Skims, then I can’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t buy something from it.
You can find the Uniqlo Ribbed Sleeveless Bra Top online here* – it’s £19.90.
(*this is an affiliate marketing link, which means I get a small percentage of any sales.)
My new book, How Not to be a Supermodel, is an instant Sunday Times Bestseller. It’s the perfect read if you love a witty page-turner and it’s available in hardback, audiobook and e-book here. If you love my writing and would like to read more of it then I can’t think of a better way of satisfying your urges.
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