Last week I bought one of the best things I’ve bought all year. I honestly don’t know what I was doing before I did this. And the most surprising thing is that this purchase happened as a result of my own complete helplessness: through the chaos created by 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 a loose story…
I have a fashion-related confession: I’m terribly bad at packing for business trips. It’s all fine if I’m throwing stuff in a case for a vacation or a short break that’s purely for my own enjoyment: no problem. But throw in a fancy social media dinner, an important meeting with a client, or any kind of date where I feel like I have to look impressive, and I totally screw it up. I forget the basic principles of dress. I pack the most ridiculous and inappropriate outfits, none of which go together, all of which are random, barely worn pieces that have been in the back of the wardrobe in my spare room 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 pose a problem when it comes to putting on clothes. I’m pretty good at dressing smart if I don’t think I’m being scrutinized, that my outfit doesn’t matter, but if I’m under any kind of pressure to look good, then I completely fall apart.
That’s why I can manage to look like a fashionable Parisian haute couture when I have a dentist appointment or when I need to go to Sainsbury’s for milk, but send me a red carpet and it looks like I’m dressed in the late nineties. In the dark.
I outdid myself this week with my bad packing. I know there are bigger things to worry about in life, but honestly, the strange contents of my suitcase haven’t caused me any inconvenience, including (in no particular order) having to detour into central London to find socks, which are almost expiring from heat exhaustion because the only top I put on was a cashmere turtleneck (so early! So premature!) and I only managed to collect pants with particularly invasive seams.
So it was an all-time low for me this week in terms of packing success. I wore the wrong shoes, forgot to bring a nice dress (I’m on a book tour right now) and – finally getting to the point of this post – in a moment of sheer haste and late-panic on the train I managed to leave the house without even a vest, t-shirt or soft, comfortable bra. NOT CASUAL CHOICES!
Stupid.
I went from home straight to a drinks event at my publisher, and then to a dinner and, because I usually travel in all my comfortable clothes (no tights, a crop top rather than a proper bra, a soft cloud-like , a versatile cashmere cardigan that can be zipped up or not for all weather scenarios) I completely forgot to pack these most basic requirements.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when I threw everything out of my suitcase in search of the travel outfit, that I realized my mistake. I would have to go to a meeting wearing a plunging neckline with nothing underneath but an excruciating, fully supported underwired bra.
(I need to talk at length about this, too, the “fitting bra vs. soft comfortable bra” thing.) There’s a lot to unpack. soft, unstructured bra that can give me almost the same stunning shape as a wired bra designed to fit my exact bust/cup size combination. With good separation between the boobs so I look like I do have boobs and not some bulky big monobloc stuck to the front of my body. There are soft bras that go a long way in creating a miraculous shape, but none can completely replace a proper over-the-shoulder support. We’ll come back to that.)
To recap, because I’m going off on every tangent imaginable, here, I found myself in the middle of a busy work week away from home without clothes that were even vaguely acceptable for a person who needs to spend 80% of her time in clothes that feel like cotton. It was practically unbearable. I had to find a softish bra, pronto, and I had to buy a camisole or t-shirt with good drape and a workable length (ie not cropped) and a cut that would allow for the wide straps of the aforementioned softish bra.
No mean feat, especially considering I only had eighteen minutes to complete the challenge.
But do you know what happened? I went into the first shop I passed on the left (I was on Regent Street, in case you were wondering) and bought myself what I mentioned at the beginning of this post, all those light years ago. A thing so uniquely perfect and shiny that I would buy it in every color if I liked any of the other colors.
It is this, my wonderful purchase: the Uniqlo ribbed sleeveless bra*. Apparently it’s a Heattech Extra-Warm, which is a bonus for fall, but I didn’t get that little feature at the point of purchase. What I had gathered, when I pulled this item over my head in the dressing room, was that it was a garment of complete and utter genius. A vest cover, soft as feathers, cut at the shoulders for that sexy GI Jane vibe and with absolutely no need for a bra underneath!
Read it again.
No bra needed. Because it had one built on top. What new level of fashion joy had I unwittingly unlocked? I felt so good in this vest that I decided to wear it to the book signing event that evening. An event! Wearing a vest! No bra!
I’m including the images below to show you the very decent shape that the built-in bra provides through the molded cups. Totally unexpected. Yes, you can see the outline of the cups through the fabric, but so can most bras – it just eliminates the lumps and bumps you get with a traditional bra and also completely eliminates the need for bra straps.
Because, let’s face it: bras and tank tops aren’t the best of friends. Vest tops are always cropped just too long to fit the everyday bra. And who can wear a racerback bra? Not me! There’s something about the feel of those cross pieces and stinging near the neck that my senses can’t handle.
And so, the Uniqlo bra top. It solves a thousand problems. I tried on a size small and a medium, I could have gone small but I chose the medium because it just felt less clingy. I’m a 32DD, for reference, and a UK10/12. I like the colorway I bought better, which Uniqlo calls “brown”, but I see it as more of a khaki. I didn’t prefer any of the other colors because I try to avoid buying black all the time and white would last seven minutes on my destructive person. I would love it in a baby pink and a good blue, maybe a denim shade, but honestly I’m open to any colorful additions, because this tank top is a game changer. No visible bra, just a smooth shape and a top that goes great with jeans, worn under jackets and trousers and can be worn with sweatpants on the weekend.
If Uniqlo expanded this range, copied the shapes and colors available in Skims, then I can’t think of a woman who wouldn’t buy something from it.
You can find the Uniqlo Ribbed Sleeveless Bra Top online here* – is £19.90.
(* this is an affiliate marketing link, meaning I get a small percentage of any sales.)
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