Even though the weather is turning nippy, there’s a spring in the fashionista’s footstep—winter fashion spills over with fabulousness. The blitheness of muslin and the casualness of cotton are overthrown for hip jackets, warm scarves and cool pumps.

In spite of a financial slump, or perhaps because of it, the hottest style of the runways this season is work wear. The shift dress, that poor little overworked and overdone number, is pushed back into the darker recesses of the wardrobe in exchange for slim skirts and fitted trousers with shirts. A tailored look that says it loud and clear: “Yes, I have a job.”

Unless you work in films, fashion or music, where anything goes, work wear is a difficult sartorial problem to explore. I’ve seen some terrible trousers in this office, unflattering and ugly even on rather pleasant wearer. Or else there’s the seasonless-ness of chintz kurtas and Fabindia kitsch that are too boring to even be sick of.

One of the most delicious staples of winter fashion is one of my favourite shapes: the pencil skirt. The pencil skirt, simply called because it makes a woman feel pencil-thin, became a popular style in the 1950s. The Fifties were easily the most feminine decade in fashion history, signatured by the elfin Audrey Hepburn and elegant Grace Kelly. Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy and Christian Dior were the labels that propounded the look.

In the 1980s, longer and brighter versions of it came out, but were quickly abandoned with all that was loud and garish in the disco decade. Sadly, the pencil skirt went out with the shoulder pads, hoop earrings and tomato-red pant-suit.

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