It is catalogue season, my friends. They can sense you panicking about what to wear on your summer holidays and they are flinging themselves through your post box in the hope that you will buy a hideous knee-length chambray dress covered in patterns of sailboats.

And I’m here to say – just pause before you buy anything, okay? Just have a pause. Put the catalogue down. Think to yourself: do I have something like this – that I never wear – in my wardrobe already? Think to yourself: do stylish people I know and admire wear things like this?

The answers are probably yes – and no.

I was minded to write this to you on receiving the SeaSalt catalogue yesterday and finding myself in a trance thinking: “Maybe a navy linen shift dress is really what I need for SS16?” or “Maybe that little dark green wrap dress in the lighthouse print is actually very cute?”

It isn’t, it’s not.

The worst offenders catalogue-wise, when it comes to dressing up basically horrible clothes as winning are: SeaSalt (just everything about how and why anyone dresses badly – except for their rainwear, which is good, and their breton tops, which any idiot with a sewing machine can run up), Wrap and Pure. Awful, all of them. But flicking through you will think: hmmmmmm…. mayyyybeeeeee.

When you do that, think of me. Put the catalogue down, take a deep breath. Stop.

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This won’t look nice on you

 

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This won’t look nice on you
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This won’t look nice on you
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This won’t look nice on you