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You may have seen the pictures of Olivia Colman, the actress who played Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, walking the Miu Miu runway during Milan fashion week earlier this month.
Things to note about this: Colman is 52, not model sample size, her hair is greying and she was wearing a black leather blazer and pencil skirt, with a V-neck sweater and backless loafers.
Miuccia Prada, who designs Miu Miu, likes to use ‘real’ older women in her runway shows – last year it was 58-year-old actress Gillian Anderson – but the surprise was that she put a normal-sized, normal-looking, 50-plus woman in an outfit that was mostly black tailored leather.
She was making a point of course: older women can wear what they like and it’s how you wear leather that counts. Age is no barrier to owning a leather jacket – you just might choose a blazer now, rather than a biker.
Being over 50 doesn’t stop you wearing a leather skirt – so long as it’s not tight or short, you substitute high heels for flats, shove your hands in the side pockets and wear it like a pair of slouchy trousers. Let’s look at leather differently, she seemed to be saying. It doesn’t have to be hard, or vampy, or rock n’ roll, it could be your easy everyday wear.
Well yes, and no. I’m a superfan of leather and the extra depth and tactility it brings – especially now that a lot of fake leather looks so real, feels lighter and costs a fraction of the price. That said, the one-hit-only rule was, in my view, invented to protect midlifers like us from leather creep. It’s tempting to buy a blazer and a skirt – a sort of toughened up skirt suit – but far better to pick one or the other, or at least avoid wearing them together.
For me Olivia Colman would have looked better in just the skirt and a navy sweater, or the blazer paired with brown cords or blue jeans – which is how the master of chic leather, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, wore hers. The two together looked too heavy and veered into KGB territory.
So, reconsider leather, but focus on one smart item and get the best you can for your money, fake or real.
This being the big season of the skirt, you might start with a below-the-knee pencil skirt along the lines of the one on the Miu Miu catwalk. M&S does a leather-look panel pencil skirt (£45, marksandspencer.com) that’s similar enough.
During the Labour Party conference last month, the PM’s wife Marie-France van Heel wore a faux leather midi-kilt-style skirt in burgundy (£46, next.co.uk) with a white shirt – if proof were needed that grown-up serious women can buy into this look. M&S has a pencil midi skirt in real brown leather for a predictably higher price (£250); it’s worth thinking about browns and burgundies because they’re softer and less stark during the daytime.
There are plenty of fake and real skirts out there with front splits (no), hemlines that finish above the knee (no) or mid-calf (no again). It’s important you’re neither swamped or hobbled by this skirt and that it looks free and relaxed. It’s at its best with a shirt or a sweater with a coat on top, but reserves the right to be dressed up.
Skipping on to jackets, the ones that are going strong for autumn are cropped and funnel-necked. I like Mango’s croc-effect brown jacket (£45.99, shop.mango.com) and M&S’s black short jacket with lapels (£75).
There are blazers out there but they’re all real leather and upwards of £300; that will have changed come next Spring when the Miu Miu copies arrive. In the meantime, a leather skirt is the more interesting addition to your wardrobe.
If trousers are more your bag, Autograph at M&S’s real leather straight-leg trousers are not cheap (£200), but proving popular because they’re the next step up from smart jeans and work as well with a tweed jacket as a silky lace-trimmed top.
With leather trousers it pays to avoid flimsy fakes, for the cut alone, but bear in mind they’re warm. On no account wear tights underneath.
A last word about footwear. A black leather pencil skirt and knee boots with a block heel is a great look (another from the Bessette Kennedy playbook) providing you wear something light on top, and there’s a gap between your hemline and boots.
Leather pencil skirts suit boots, block midi heels and loafers but not cute kitten heels or court shoes. The rule is avoid va-va-voom vibes and you’re in business.