Forget Jungian therapy, regression or ayahuasca, the best insight into a woman’s psyche is to see what’s hanging unworn in her wardrobe. Be honest. How many of your outfits are gathering dust?
And why do we buy expensive clothes, then refuse to let them see the sartorial light of day? It’s as if we’re kitting ourselves out for a parallel, more glamorous existence.
The outfits are ready, it’s just that our lives haven’t met the dress code.
Full of laugh-out-loud humour and devastating pathos, Kathy Lette's brilliant new novel takes us on a roller-coaster ride which proves that from pain comes healing, from honesty comes forgiveness, and that nothing is more important than your sisters.
Matilda, Jo, Penny and Cressy are all women at the top of their game; so imagine their surprise when they start to be personally overlooked and professionally pushed aside by less-qualified men. Only they're not going down without a fight. Society might think the women have passed their amuse-by dates but the Revenge Club have other plans.
An outrageously funny, heartbreaking read - when Ruby finds out she has cancer on the brink of her 50th birthday, she decides to start living instead of complying.
My own wardrobe is a museum of alternative variations of me. It’s optimism on hangers. I have clothes for après-ski revelries, grand balls, cross-country hacking, Parisian soirées, Capri yachting, palace garden parties, elk-stalking and pole-dancing.
And what do I wear day in, day out? Saggy yoga pants and baggy tracksuits. I look poised to clean algae out of your aquarium or re-grout a shower at a moment’s notice. Clearly, I pay full price for a fantasy life... but get the reality for free.
Taking a trepidatious peek into my wardrobe, I’m chastened by the treasures I find. My first discovery: a shimmering, strapless pink chiffon dress with its price tag still attached. What did this lovely frock ever do to deserve my disdain? A cheeky leopard-print jacket is still wrapped in cellophane. Why haven’t I allowed it out to prowl the urban jungle?
If every outfit tells a story, why not make yours a blockbuster?
It’s as if my clothes are in a witness protection programme. Why else have I kept that pinstriped pencil skirt hidden away? I bought it as a ‘statement piece’, yet I’ve never let it make a statement.
I have a ‘capsule wardrobe’ all right - a time capsule! That brocaded velvet pantsuit wasn’t even vintage when I bought it. I feel bad for that pea-green coat too. Why is it so cruelly neglected? I also seem to have ghosted a teal cashmere twinset I was keeping for ‘best’.
Well, the ‘best’ moment never came but the moths have RSVP’d, big time.
My underwear drawer offers yet more reprimands. Silk scanties, a satin teddy, a black peekaboo bra… yet what do I wear each day? Sensible granny pants and a grey, fraying bra. I purchased all that lovely lingerie for special sensual encounters. But shouldn’t every sensual encounter be special?
In truth, the ‘special occasions’ women wait for have been happening daily; we’ve just misread the dress code. Well, now is the Anna Wintour of my discontent! From now on I’m treating every day as ‘best’.
I’m swanning to the supermarket in a taffeta ball gown. I’m visiting Mum in the nursing home in leather hot pants. I’m wearing my fascinator to the bank and my tiara to the post office.
If every outfit tells a story, why not make yours a blockbuster? My new fashion statement is mischievously tongue-in-chic. My advice? Don’t wait for an invitation from destiny. Just go forth and be sartorially fabulous.
Kathy Lette writes her amusing columns on all sorts of topics, from female friendship to faking orgasms, camaraderie at divorce parties and going makeup-free – and even the importance of laughter itself. A new column is published in woman&home magazine every month.
This column first appeared in the October 2026 issue of woman&home magazine - on sale Thursday 27th August. Subscribe to the magazine for £6 for 6 issues.
