Last week I bought one of the best things I’ve bought all year. I honestly don’t know what I was doing with my life before I had it. And the most amazing thing is that this purchase came about as a result of my own ineptitude: through the chaos I created myself, I found wardrobe Nirvana.
But let’s back up a bit and set the scene, so I can give you at least eight hundred words of vaguely related history…
I have a fashion confession: I am awful at packing for work trips. It’s okay if I pack a suitcase for a vacation or a short getaway that’s just for my own enjoyment—no problem. But add to that a fancy social media dinner, an important client meeting, or any kind of date where I feel like I need to look awesome, and I go completely nuts. I forget the basics of dressing. I pack the most ridiculous, inappropriate, mismatched items of clothing, random, rarely worn pieces that have been sitting in the back of my guest bedroom closet for years because I have no idea what to do with them.
And my problems aren’t just limited to packing for trips; even leaving the house seems to present a problem when it comes to putting on clothes. I’m pretty good at dressing stylishly if I don’t feel like I’m being scrutinized, that my outfit doesn’t matter, but if I have any kind of pressure to look good, then I completely fall apart.
That’s why I can pretend to be a Parisian fashion designer when I have a dentist appointment or need to go to Sainsbury’s to buy milk, but if I’m sent down a red carpet I’ll look like I’ve dressed in the late 90s. In the dark.
I’ve outdone myself this week with my poor packing. I know there are more important things to worry about in life, but honestly, the strange contents of my suitcase have caused me no end of inconvenience, including (in no particular order) having to make a detour into central London to find socks, nearly dying of heat exhaustion because the only top I packed was a cashmere turtleneck (too soon! How premature!), and managing to pack only trousers with particularly invasive reinforced seams.
This week, packing has been at an all-time low. I packed the wrong shoes, forgot to bring a nice dress (I’m currently on a book tour), and finally, to the point of this post, in a moment of pure rush and panic about being late for the train, I managed to leave the house without a single tank top, a single t-shirt, or a soft, comfortable bra. NO CASUAL OPTIONS!
Idiot.
I was heading from home straight to a drinks event at my publisher’s house, and then to a dinner party, and since I usually travel in all my comfortable clothes (no tight bras, a crop top instead of a proper bra, a cloud-soft T-shirt, a versatile cashmere cardigan that can be buttoned or not and therefore covers all weather situations), I completely forgot to pack these most basic requirements.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when I was throwing everything out of my suitcase in search of my travel clothes, that I realized my mistake. I would have to go to a meeting in a stifling turtleneck with nothing underneath but a fully-supportive underwire bra.
(I also need to talk at length about this, about the “right bra versus the soft and comfortable bra.” There is a lot to unpack. Because I have to say that there is no A soft, unstructured bra that can give me a shape similar to an underwire bra that has been designed to fit my exact breast and cup size. With good separation between the breasts so it looks like I have nothing on. have breasts and not a huge, bulky monobloc stuck to the front of my body. There are soft bras that help a lot in creating a miraculous shape, but none can completely replace a bra that is worn over the shoulders. We will return to this topic.)
Long story short, because I’m digressing, I found myself in the middle of a busy work week away from home with no clothes that were even minimally acceptable for a person who needs to spend 80% of their time in cotton-like garments. It was practically unbearable. I needed to find a soft bra, fast, and I needed to buy a tank top or t-shirt with a good drape and a manageable length (i.e. not cut off) and a cut that would allow for the wide straps of the aforementioned soft bra.
It was no easy feat, especially considering he only had eighteen minutes to complete the challenge.
But do you know what happened? I walked into the first shop I saw on the left (it was on Regent Street, in case you were wondering) and bought what I mentioned at the beginning of this article, so many light years ago now. Something so unique, perfect and brilliant that I would buy it in any colour, if I liked any of the other colours.
This is my magnificent purchase: the Uniqlo ribbed tank top*. Apparently it’s a Heattech Extra-Warm, which is a plus for fall, but I hadn’t noticed that little feature at the time of purchase. What I did notice, when I pulled this garment over my head in the fitting room, was that it was a piece of total and utter genius. A well-fitting, feather-soft tank top with a cutout at the shoulders to give it that sexy GI Jane vibe, and No need to wear a bra underneath!
Read it again.
I didn’t need a bra, because I had one built into the top. What new level of fashion joy had I unwittingly unlocked? I instantly felt so good in this tank top that I decided to wear it to the book signing event that night. An event! Wearing a tank top! No bra!
I’m including the following images to show you the really decent shape that the built-in bra provides through the moulded cups. Completely unexpected. Yes, you can see the outline of the cups through the fabric, but you could also see most bras – this simply eliminates the lumps and bumps that appear with a traditional bra and also completely eradicates the need for bra straps.
Because let’s face it: bra straps and tank tops are not best friends. Tank tops always have a cut fair That little bit too deep to accommodate an everyday bra. And who can be bothered with a racerback bra? Not me! There’s something about the feeling of those crisscrossed parts and the pinch near the nape of my neck that my senses can’t stand.
And so, the Uniqlo tank top. It solves a thousand problems. I tried on small and medium sizes, I could have gone for the small but opted for the medium because it was less tight. I wear a size 32DD, for reference, and a UK 10/12. I quite like the colourway I bought, which Uniqlo calls “brown” but looks more like khaki to me. I didn’t go for any of the other colours, because I try to avoid buying black all the time and white would last seven minutes on my catastrophic self. I’d love to get it in a baby pink and a nice blue, maybe a denim-like shade, but frankly I’m open to any colourful additions, because this tank top is a game-changer. There’s no bra showing, just a soft, tailored shape and a top that looks great with jeans, can be worn under suit jackets and trousers and can be paired with sweatpants at the weekend.
If Uniqlo were to expand this range, copy the shapes and colours available at Skims, then I can’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t buy something there.
You can find Uniqlo’s ribbed tank top online here* – costs £19.90.
(*This is an affiliate marketing link, meaning I get a small percentage of any sales.)
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