How school-run mums can come top of the class

Ever wondered what to wear to fit in with other mothers? Or, indeed, to make a splash? And could you, please, tell me – where did all the good belts go?

Dear Clothes Doctor,

How can I look good at the school gates?

I live in quite an upmarket area and all the other ‘school run mums’ come in to my son’s classroom with their hair brushed and wearing lipstick, while I’m always the one covered in cornflakes.

How can I get dressed in thirty seconds flat and still look half decent, every blooming day?

Kate, Stratford upon Avon

Dear Kate - a lady from Shakespeare’s very own town, no less!

I have one, albeit four-syllabled, word of advice for you: multi-tasking – oh no, not of your poor, no-doubt-already-horribly-overburdened self, but of your clothes and make-up.

It seems to me that what you really, really need is something approaching a ‘capsule’ wardrobe, comprised of those mythical three items that somehow transform into twenty different outfits to suit every occasion. You need stuff to make you look good everywhere; specifically, for the trudge to school, and back, and back again. Every day.

I’m not saying it’s what’s on the outside that counts, in preference to getting your darlings to school on time, more that if we feel pulled together, it’s easier to deal with daily tantrums about scooters and banned Nutella.

So, ladies and perhaps a gentleman or two, I give you as ammunition against scruffiness those twin weapons, natty clothes plus cosmetic wonder-products.

Firstly, your outfit. Buy a nice coat with a nipped-in waist, to cover less graceful sartorial choices lurking beneath. Even – especially – if you don’t actually have a waist, a belt or pockets can conjure you a svelte shape from thin air. And it’s winter, so – and I’ll leave to you to figure out whether I’ve – ahem – ever tried this one – you could wear the top part of your jim jammies under your coat, with jeans below. Nobody would be any the wiser…and what exactly do you think newsreaders arriving late from the school run wear on their lower reaches, as they smoothly dish out the headlines, eh?

Most crucially of all, you must take a mightily deep, long breath and then go out and buy one or two hair-raisingly expensive bits of makeup. But it’s OK: they last forever and a day.

skag_regular_1 Get some of that miraculous product called ‘primer’ – it’s invisible but somehow, don’t ask me the wherefore and hows, it makes your face look smoother, less wrinkly and less like you’re an extra from The Night of the Living Dead. Then, you’ll be after a nice, extra-subtle foundation – Benefit do sweet ones with packaging to make you smile widely, such as this wondrous, gossamer-light ‘foundation faker’ called some kinda gorgeous .

Simply swipe it over any particularly offensive blotches or dark circles. If your face is, like mine, composed entirely of blotches and dark circles first thing in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon and evening and at weekends and bank holidays, too, just go for the worst bits and laugh gaily to distract from the rest.

Finally, acquire a beautiful, elegant lipstick. It took me several aeons to twig that these are worth their weight in gold-plated cases, since you only have to glance at the pigment for it to stay on your lips all through the long day-full of kissing away hurts.

That’s it. You might look a smidgen predictable each day, but predictably beautiful is a look that never dates.

Dear Clothes Doctor,

Please help – I’ve lost my belt. Here’s the product code…

Thanks,

Michelle, Whitchurch

Dear Michelle,

Aha- a specific enquiry! Righty-ho. Well, we all know that losing crucial parts of a favourite outfit is at best annoying and, at worst, a shocking waste of money, but belts are items whose mission in life seems to be to get eaten by friends’ sofas, stuck in train doors or mangled by oily bicycle chains. And it’s always, always one’s newest belt from one’s favourite coat, isn’t it?

A little bird tells me that your coat is from Zara and fairly new to boot, but enquiries all the way to Zara’s head office in Spain yielded only the less-than-useful news that the company makes coats and belts in one fell swoop. So, no, I’m afraid it doesn’t make any spares.

This production method, Michelle, is a consequence of Zara and their ilk racing to whisk new catwalk-alike items onto their shelves with unseemly haste and without thought to providing replacement of bits that wear out, fall off or go walkabout – then selling out of said items in a blink and going into production of entirely different garments, all before you can say: ‘Oi, where’s my coat in a different size, then?’

Methinks they want your un-belted body in another new coat altogether – a canny marketing ploy but, I’m sure you’ll agree, an environmental nightmare.

You’ll simply have to add a replacement belt of such glamour and beauty that it’ll look as though it was born there.

Yours, I know, is a lovely soft wool coat in a shade well known to camels. So, below, I list a few suggestions, in the hope that they may spark inspiration using your own impeccable taste. These are from M&S and Urban Outfitters, but there are lovely belts loitering on every street corner, so good luck with your search.

Marks & Spencer; Urban Outfitter (Robot print belt); Urban Outfitters (Lee basic belt)