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If you’ve ever stood in front of your wardrobe and thought, I have nothing to wear, Net-A-Porter’s fashion director Kay Barron has some advice for you. Her new book, How To Wear Everything, is a no-nonsense guide to dressing, designed to help us worry less about our clothes. Filled with her practical and professional tips alongside advice from people like Sofia Richie Grainge, Law Roach, and Sarah Jessica Parker (no big deal), Barron’s book is helping us to connect with our personal style.
The idea for the book came six years ago: She wanted it to be a “bible” for getting dressed. “Clothes should never be intimidating, they should always make you feel good about yourself,” she tells Refinery29. “I wanted everyone to understand what they want to wear, how they want to wear it and where they want to wear it.” In the book, Barron shares item-by-item tips for every kind of occasion, from heading to the office to going on a first date (which obviously differs from the second and third one). “The thing to remember about making use of everything in your wardrobe is that you don’t have to love everything all the time, and instead you have to know what you will love again in future, so you don’t part with it and regret it later,” Barron says.
How To Wear Everything reminds us that clothes play a huge role in our lives, no matter how we feel about fashion. So instead of starting wars with our wardrobes — and our social media feeds, which can make us feel ultra unstylish — we can follow simple style strategies to make our clothing work for us. Below, find a taster of Barron’s sage advice including five wardrobe staples she highlights in the book, along with how to wear them.
How To Wear A Black Maxi Coat
Don’t underestimate the satisfaction of putting on a long coat that a) goes with pretty much everything and b) makes you feel like you’re in The Matrix. Barron suggests a coat that’s slightly below mid-calf length, straight-cut and single-breasted — and black because it can make you feel however you want. Outerwear is one of Barron’s favorite staple categories. “I will often build an outfit around the jacket I am going to wear with it,” she says. “The complete look is the first impression, and that is important.”
How To Wear A Bralette
While you might overlook undergarments when auditing your wardrobe staples, Barron’s hawk eye for detail gives tighty-whities more importance. “A good bra or bralette, even if you just see a flash of it, can revolutionize the most basic of outfits, and can even replace a top altogether with the right jacket buttoned over it,” Barron writes.
How To Wear A Hoodie
“Off-duty style should be as aspirational as any sort of dressing,” Barron writes. “These are the clothes that we spend our personal time in, and we owe it to ourselves to make even the smallest efforts.” Barron highlights the humble hoodie as a staple of off-duty and on-duty style. Wear a cropped hoodie with high-waisted trousers, an oversized one under a duster coat, or a soft hoodie French-tucked into wide-leg trousers. “Some earrings or a stack of bracelets further serve to take the hoodie off the sofa, out of the gym and into the office.”
How To Wear Long Evening Boots
For Barron, “long evening boots” means a fitted boot that hits just below or over the knee, has a higher heel and a pointed or round toe. It’s the type of boot you’ll wear to a party or a dinner date or a formal work event. Boots are another of Barron’s favorite staples. “Over-the-knee, stiletto, block heel, flat and probably every other style you can think of are sat in a cupboard in my house just waiting for autumn,” Barron says. “Boots suit about 80% of the weather, and almost every single occasion. I can’t get enough.”
How To Wear A Tote Bag
Like capsule wardrobes, Barron believes in handbag capsules — and a tote bag should be your hardest working one. Since you’ll use it for work, travel and day-to-day living, she suggests finding a tote bag that goes with everything you wear. “Ensure the handles fit comfortably over your shoulder, even when wearing a large coat, and that they aren’t flimsy. An inner pocket is always useful to keep the essentials.” She also gives practical albeit controversial advice: “Please take time to regularly clean it out — I’d suggest once a week.”
To read more of Barron’s no-nonsense clothing advice, How To Wear Everything is available to buy now.
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In the 1990s and early 2000s, few retail brands were as ubiquitous as Victoria’s Secret. Elevated yet accessible, “Victoria” was in thousands of malls globally, her catalogs in every mailbox, and, most importantly, her bras in every top drawer. In 2001, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show starring “Angels” Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, and Gisele Bundchen — the first broadcast on CBS primetime — was seen by 12.4 million.
But there was no real Victoria. There never was. She was a myth, a fairy tale, not unlike the fantasy the Angels created with their airbrushed bodies and hyper-sexualized personas.
What began as a specialty store in the Bay Area became a household name out of Columbus, Ohio, when retail magnate Les Wexner acquired it in 1982. Lingerie — namely, bras — was always the bread and butter, but clothing and a beauty line helped make VS a true powerhouse in the ‘90s and ‘00s.
In the 2010s, though, Victoria started to lose her grip. Brands like Aerie and Skims were gaining market share, the idealized body type was no longer in public favor, and the #MeToo movement was uncovering longtime misconduct within the organization from top executives, including Ed Razek, considered the architect of the VSFS as we knew it. Then came the biggest bombshell of them all: Jeffrey Epstein had been Wexner’s close confidant and financial adviser for years — and posed as a model recruiterto prey on women. In the wake of the news, Wexner resigned as CEO in February 2020, and was out completely the following year.
The rise and fall of Victoria’s Secret has been documented in many ways: a podcast, a docuseries, and, now, a book. In Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon, out on October 8, journalists Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez detail the history of the brand, drawn to it because of its massive role not only in retail history but also pop culture.
“To us, Victoria’s Secret was something that tells the story of American culture, because American culture is consumer culture,” Sherman says. As they peeled back the layers of Victoria’s Secret, they learned there was more than met the lace-trimmed facade.
“The story is more interesting and more complicated than just that the [campaigns around the] Angels were out of touch and misogynistic,” adds Fernandez. “It goes deeper than that.”
Amid Victoria’s Secret’s most recentattempt to rebrand (see: the return of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show next week), Sherman and Fernandez discuss what they think of how the brand engages with nostalgia, what surprised them most when writing the book, and how Taylor Swift fits into the story.
What were each of your personal relationships to Victoria’s Secret growing up? Lauren Sherman: I first interacted with it when I was super young. There was an era when, probably 10 years after Les Wexner bought it and it was already a billion-dollar business, that he was really focused on refining the aesthetic. I think we might’ve even used this term “class up the joint.” And he was really into using the narrative that Victoria was part British and married to a barrister. It was all burgundy and florals and just very elegant.
Chantel Fernandez: I was part of the Pink generation, so that arrived perfectly on time for me and a lot of girls born in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. I got my first real big-girl bra from there. I don’t remember a time before this brand. It was really dominant in culture, and represented something about beauty and beauty standards. But I thought Pink was fun. I thought the Victoria’s Secret side of the store was really intimidating, and I never really graduated into it.
You describe the Pink era really well in the book. I still have one of those little pink dogs somewhere. CF: Those dogs are genius. And the store in general — that’s such a big part of the Victoria’s Secret experience: their retail theater, how much care they put into how it was decorated, just being in there and sampling the lotion with your friends. You didn’t even buy anything. It was an experience to be in there. That’s a huge part of the success of the store and the innovation of that brand. A lot of that came out of Leslie Wexner, who at one point owned Abercrombie. He was thinking really innovatively about store design and how that was a form of marketing in and of itself.
What surprised you most when researching the book? LS: There’s a big narrative around this company that it was run by men — misogynists — who were just kind of doing what they wanted. And, in some ways, that’s true, but also every generation of this business had really strong female executives who were trying to do the right thing, empower women to buy lingerie and to be comfortable in their sexuality. I’d say that what we really tried to do with this book is show the whole story. It’s never just as easy as bad actors. There’s always another side to it. And this company accomplished a lot, and also employed a lot of really remarkable women who changed the consumer culture, the way we shop. It’s not really a revelation, but it’s more of a reminder that no story is so simple.
I’ll share mine: It was surprising just how young these models were. You talk about how Adriana Lima was just 15 when she started, and the model Danita Angell was just 14. LS: That’s super common. That was industry standard at that time in high fashion. There’s a model who’s going to become really famous soon, who just did her first magazine cover — she’s 15 and technically not allowed to work in Paris. Everybody’s talking about her under the radar, but it’s still a thing.
CF: [The models’] career was sort of meant to end when they’re 22, especially back then. Now, there’s not as much of an age cap. These supermodels are still walking the runway and doing these incredible things, but, when they started, they probably were under the impression that, even if they’re extremely successful, this is done pretty soon. This is an industry where you can be 20 and be geriatric, basically.
Victoria’s Secret attempted to rebrand in 2021. With so many mall brands like Abercrombie and J.Crew having a resurgence, where do you think Victoria’s Secret stands? Do you think the rebrand was successful? LS: Oh, the rebrand definitely hasn’t been successful. [The stock price] might be relatively flat right now, but, if you look at the business, the profits have shrunk. They’ve had a couple good quarters here and there, but they haven’t gained anything yet.
The success of Abercrombie and Fitch and the restructuring of that business is really not focused on nostalgia, but on product and what the consumer wants. The positive momentum Gap has right now is an indicator that these brands can return. The other thing is that consumers are penny-pinching right now, so mall brands have a place.
Also, there’s backlash to things like Shein bras. In some ways, that’s benefitted Victoria’s Secret, because people will just keep going back. But in some ways, it has hurt them, because they can’t apply the exact same playbook that these other businesses have applied. But I do think they still have so much market share, if they’re able to turn around the marketing and create product that gets people excited, there’s a chance that they can have a comeback. Even though, as we know, they never really left.
CF: I don’t think that it’s impossible for them to have a really interesting resurgence. Maybe not to the same degree that Abercrombie has had, which has been so unusually successful. But it’s not like everyone isn’t aware of this brand. They know it. It has the most stores for lingerie. If you still need a bra in a pinch and you fit their size range, that’s a huge advantage they have over the online brands. And a lot of people still want to try on their bras in person. And I think there is a nostalgia factor that they clearly want to play with, and they could, but it’s really tough.
A big shadow over the legacy of Victoria’s Secret is Jeffrey Epstein’s business relationship with Les Wexner. How did you approach that piece of the book? LS: I think the hardest thing was deciding how much of it we wanted to devote to that, because we could have pitched this book as a book about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Les Wexner. That book would’ve sold very easily, but we didn’t want to do that because the reality is Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t involved in the day-to-day Victoria’s Secret business. And so we decided, as business reporters who cover the fashion industry, that we needed to write a corporate history — and he’s not a giant part of it. So, instead of weaving him through the narrative — which I think the documentary tried to do — we decided, Let’s put that in its own chapter. We could have probably spent five more years reporting this book and maybe would’ve come up with even more revelations around that. But, it’s interesting: If you look at the trajectory of Victoria’s Secret, the trajectory of Jeffrey Epstein, and the trajectory of American culture, the three things really align. Les Wexner severed ties with him in 2007, Victoria’s Secret was on the rise until then. There was foreshadowing in the early 2000s that something might be awry with the business. It peaked in 2016, right around the time of the height of the #MeToo movement, and then it really started to have its downfall around the time that Epstein was jailed.
CF: We put it where we did in the book, which was sort of as the revelations of Epstein were becoming public, because that was really the biggest impact it had. Victoria’s Secret was already in a weakened position, and it just further created problems for them. But it had a reputational impact more than anything else.
Shifting gears, in the book you write that Ed Razek gave Taylor Swift an angel wings ring. That was so interesting because I feel like the rules around who got to wear angel wings were very strict. CF: What I thought was so interesting about that was exactly what you’re saying — these really arbitrary rules about who gets to be an Angel. Like, “Oh, if you walk first in a segment or you close a segment,” and it was all these ways of creating hierarchies that, in retrospect, are kind of depressing. But it was an effective way to create storylines and narratives, and, within this world of the models, it was a reality show that we were watching. Like, “Oh, Taylor’s hanging out with Martha Hunt.” It shows how intertwined the brand was with culture at that time. Taylor Swift doesn’t really do brand work anymore. She really hadn’t played in the fashion or fashion-adjacent space. So it was really unusual and very effective. It was great for Victoria’s Secret while it lasted.
LS: I think it’s a real indication of the passing of time. That would never happen today. She’s much more in control of her image and, at the time, felt like she was so in control of it, but now she would’ve never — and forget about all the controversy. It’s just not something that you would imagine.
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I don’t know if this is universally true, but, in my experience, therapists love the color burgundy.
I’ve sat in many different therapists’ offices over the decades, and, as a design writer, I often find myself wondering about their decor. How did they choose that menacing Venetian mask? Why would they plop so many plastic plants on their carpet? Why do they seem to gravitate towards heavy furniture? Why do so many of them have maroon couches and rugs?
I blame Sigmund Freud, of course.
Freud began his practice in the late 19th century in the opulent city of Vienna. At the time, he was just a humble doctor — no one special. He would go on to become one of the most influential (and controversial) men of the century, his ideas about the human mind making him famous worldwide. But then, his fame rippled outwards, touching everything he touched, from his iconic round lenses to his equally iconic couch. (You can still visit this divan in London, which is the last place Freud lived.) While the latter is beige and rather plain, Freud turned it into something maximalist, piling it with rugs and cushions, all of them red, red, red.
But no red is just red. Maybe more so than any other color, red asks for specificity. Orange-red is very different from pinkish-red, which is, again, totally, tonally unlike brown-red. “The varied powers of red are very striking,” wrote painter Wassily Kandinsky in On The Spiritual in Art (1910). “By a skillful use of it in its different shades, its fundamental tone may be made warm or cold.”
Our current red, the one making the rounds on social media and hopping off runways and clothing racks, isn’t a hot color. It’s decidedly not a Matisse red, which has more yellow in it and better fits the tomato-girl vibes of summer. It’s not a sporty red, either, nor is it a sexy red. It’s much quieter than that. This burgundy — or bordeaux, to use the currently favored name for the hue — is cool. It speaks not of flame or flowers, but rather of blood and pomegranates. One does not choose bordeaux for a sports car or a sexy strapless dress; you do so for a sumptuous velvet drape or a pair of subtle statement boots.
There’s never any one reason for why a color begins to trend. It’s always a snowball effect: Someone cool wears it, some cool designer features it in their show, some cool marketing executive picks it for a cool new campaign, some cool product designer slaps it on a cool new product or an old (but, again, cool) standby. (A KitchenAid has, of course, never looked cooler.) Then, once the ball is rolling, it begins to grow.
Sometimes, the color is exciting, because we haven’t seen it in a while (see: Peach Fuzz). Sometimes, it’s appealing because we already have it in our closets (hello, Brat Green). Usually, it’s a combination. In oxblood, dark academia meets Freudcore meets standard fall dressing — throw in a dash of The Substance, and you’ve got a fully-fledged color moment.
I happen to love this color. I’m currently seated in a coffee shop in Santa Fe, typing on a laptop I pulled out of my beat-up Madewell leather tote. It’s burgundy — almost purple, but not quite — with a black stripe down the middle. I bought it years ago, seeking a work bag that would look more polished than my nylon backpack. After I splurged for this unremarkable thing, something funny happened: I began buying more pieces, from sweaters to boots to corduroys, in a similar hue. See, burgundy’s always available, because it’s almost (but again, not quite) a neutral tone, easy to match with the other colors that dominate my wardrobe: black, blue, brown, olive.
Lately, I find myself reaching for burgundy because it feels homey. It reminds me of the old brick buildings of New York and New England, and the emphasis placed on scholastic endeavors. It reminds me of being young and going off to college in the Hudson Valley, where maroon banners hung from European-style facades and kids went to class in red fleece sweatpants with the school’s logo emblazoned on the side. It reminds me of tradition and transitions — of both becoming and pretending.
In many cultures, dark reds are associated with pomp, circumstance, and displays of power. This has been true for hundreds of years, possibly even dating back to the ancients. If you’re a color fiend, you may have already heard of Tyrian purple, a famed dye harvested from carnivorous snails on the Mediterranean shores — what you might not realize that this hue skewed more red than blue in practice: Like many natural dyes, the results changed depending on the underlying color of the cloth and the conditions under which it was steeped, but, while many tend to fade with time, Tyrian purple only gets more vivid. (BBC historian Kelly Grovier notes that this is the “miraculous quality that commanded [its] exorbitant price, exceeding the pigment’s weight in precious metals.”)
In ancient Greece, only the richest and most elevated members of society were allowed to don Tyrian purple. Supposedly, Emperor Caligula once killed a visiting guest for daring to wear it, interpreting their outfit as a direct insult to his power.
Over the centuries, it became a little less dangerous to wear reddish-purple, though it was still a favored color for men at the top of the hierarchy. Cardinals wore red, kings loved it, and the pope still famously walks around in little red loafers. Some of these are true crimsons, but others feel more Tyrian in spirit.
Writer Jude Stewart argues that burgundy came to “epitomize officialdom,” showing up in Catholic school uniforms and on institutional carpets around the western hemisphere. For Stewart, there’s one often-overlooked reason for this choice: dirt-proofing. (Deep red carpets hide a little schmutz, while burgundy cloaks can undergo plenty of wear-and-tear.)
You no longer have to milk a snail to get a durable merlot hue. Today, it’s a perfect cross-over color, fitting equally well into the Mob Wife aesthetic, the Quiet Luxury trend, and even the pop-punk revival. It was big in both the ‘90s and the ‘60s, equally popular with mods and grunges and housewives. It can be ladylike and prim, or neurotic and messy. It looks equally good on a thrashed velvet slip dress as a wool suit.
A more contemporary way of wearing burgundy can be found on the 2024 runways, where houses including Gucci, Hermès, Tom Ford, and Miu Miu used dark red leather (real and faux) to create tailored skirts, scoop-neck bra tops, and nostalgia-nodding suiting. While there’s nothing truly groundbreaking about wearing deep, cool reds during the colder months, there is something gratifying about dressing so seasonally, particularly when you can throw in a little spice. A formerly conservative color, burgundy feels newly wild when worn as a leather bustier or in frothy layers of tulle. Maybe Caligula would object, but your therapist (probably) will not.
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