Insider

|15 May 2018|5 mins

I started dressing like a dude and I’ve never felt better

Giant blazers are life

Rebecca Hooton

15 May 2018

You know how you sync up your period with everyone you work with?

I feel like it's the same with what you’re wearing.

I mean, you always have your own spin on it, but you still vibe off each other a lot.

There was the teen magazine, where I adopted the bubblegum girlie look in everything from peach to purple.

I grew my hair long because we were all in our early twenties and had time to blow-dry it in the mornings and bared my freshly-bronzed legs from Sunday self-tan nights.

Then, I knew I wanted to climb the career ladder and get into more grown-up women’s magazines like Cosmo and Elle.

I’d always been told you need to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, so I started wearing what I thought an editor would wear. It involved a lot of white. haha

I kept a series of heels under my desk in case I ever had to go to a meeting with someone important who could give me my next job.

When that day came - and it did - I was so grateful to have a pair of white heels to slip on when spontaneously summoned to meet the editor of Cosmo, who ended up giving me my big break.

Insider

|15 May 2018|5 mins

I started dressing like a dude and I’ve never felt better

Giant blazers are life

Rebecca Hooton

15 May 2018

You know how you sync up your period with everyone you work with?

I feel like it's the same with what you’re wearing.

I mean, you always have your own spin on it, but you still vibe off each other a lot.

There was the teen magazine, where I adopted the bubblegum girlie look in everything from peach to purple.

I grew my hair long because we were all in our early twenties and had time to blow-dry it in the mornings and bared my freshly-bronzed legs from Sunday self-tan nights.

Then, I knew I wanted to climb the career ladder and get into more grown-up women’s magazines like Cosmo and Elle.

I’d always been told you need to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, so I started wearing what I thought an editor would wear. It involved a lot of white. haha

I kept a series of heels under my desk in case I ever had to go to a meeting with someone important who could give me my next job.

When that day came - and it did - I was so grateful to have a pair of white heels to slip on when spontaneously summoned to meet the editor of Cosmo, who ended up giving me my big break.

@friendinfashion at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2018

Then, I did a complete one-eighty and had a baby. I lost my fashion voice for a while there, dabbling in bohemian vibes, like the Spell & The Gyspy Collective mums I followed on Instagram.

I even got a job with a little bohemian store in the Blue Mountains where floral maxi dresses and tie-up sandals were the uniform.

Then, I went freelance as a writer and editor. Now, I can be at Elle one day, THE ICONIC the next.

It’s great and the content keeps me interested, but I’m kind of a lone agent going in and out of places.

So what sort of wardrobe do you subscribe to when you don’t have a permanent crew to chameleon to?

My freelance fashion phase was ignited when I stumbled into the men’s section at a department store one day.

They’d moved things around and I was drawn to an oversized denim jacket, without realising it was designed for men.

I tried some guys' stuff on anyway, fell in love with how comfy they were and walked out with a new style that would help me get sh*t done.

Checked pants, stripes and ranch boots on attendees at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2018

While I was just discovering the wonders of the men's department, celebrities were speaking out about fashion inequalities.

Meghan Markle revealed that her scripts in Suits were often asking her to enter the room wearing only a towel. But she started saying no.

We've also seen actress Kristen Stewart make headlines for kicking off her heels in protest on the Cannes red carpet recently, where the dress code stated that women wear heels.

The times are changing, friends. I LOVE a great heel moment and feminine dresses, but it's also liberating to know that we have options now.

There's power in wearing flats. It's freeing to see all the oversized jackets and loose man-style pants coming in and women rocking them just as well, if not better than the guys.

Along with style-stalking vintage Princess Diana pics (who is total #mumgoals), I'm adding vintage Bob Dylan to my Pinterest page.

You may know Dylan's song “Blowin’ In The Wind”?

His music is epic, but he also dresses SO WELL.

Oversized blazers, white collared shirts, vintage jeans, stripes and roll-neck tops…

Image via Getty

I've stocked up on high-waisted jeans and belts, got myself some roll neck skivvies and scoured the internet for the best blazers out there.

I was feeling like a lone freelancer with my comfy man-style obsession (albeit with K-Stew in my corner).

But then I rocked up to the offices of Elle to find one of their designers proclaim that she was wearing a loose-fitting men’s jumper.

At lunchtime I saw a girl from another office in an oversized blazer and we bonded over how comfy they were.

Today I’m spotting brogues every time I step into the office kitchen to top up my tea.

And the Bob Dylan sentiment was all over fashion week, too...

The Bob Dylan vibes as seen on attendees at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2018

It just shows that whatever style you’re into wearing and whatever phase of life you're in, someone else will feel the same.

Even when you feel alone, you’re really not - there’s someone else out there who just wants to wear stuff that will let them get sh*t done too.

We can all be united by our oversized blazers blowin’ in the wind…

And you can do it in pastel pink if you want to.

As seen on an attendee at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2018

Browse the blazer trend

Rebecca Hooton

Writer