Despite spending a considerable amount of time thinking about clothes, I can’t honestly say that age-appropriateness is a concept I usually give much thought to. I wear clothes for grownups, simple as that. For 11 months a year, anyway.
Holiday dressing is when the age-appropriate issue gets thorny. The minute you attempt to pack a suitcase, you are forced to choose between two wildly diverging aesthetics. You can dress like a Love Island extra, in overcomplicated swimwear, aggressively short shorts, frilly tops with a dubious Lolita/milkmaid vibe, or wear practical button-down dresses and elasticated waist “trousers” that are to all intents and purposes tracksuit bottoms. You can look exhaustingly up for it, or as if you have given up entirely.
Neither, thank you very much. I don’t want to dress up as a like-famished influencer, but neither am I ready to be a Merchant Ivory great-aunt. I want to wear clothes that feel special, to honour the fact that these are precious days with my favourite people, but I also want comfort. I’m not reaching for the stars here, people. Why is this so hard? Perhaps the answer is, as so often these days, in athleisure.
Some of the best holiday looks I’ve noticed this summer could best be described as après-hike. Après-hike is like après-ski, but more summery and less snooty. The sporty holiday, long in vogue among a certain social class, has gone mass. Cycling, hiking and yoga have become perfectly normal holiday behaviours. Personally, I don’t find I have much time left over for these kind of extracurricular activities: after talking about what to have for lunch, cooking lunch and eating lunch, it’s pretty much time to start on dinner. But maybe other people have more hours in the day. Or fewer meals.
Anyway, no matter – it’s après, remember, so it’s the look, not the activity. Après-hike can be a jazzy but sporty sandal (flat for day, heeled for night) which feels like a good halfway house between a toe-thong and a stout espadrille. It can be a silky trackpant – more modern than a palazzo pant with its travellers’ cheque vibes; less of a mosquito beacon than hot pants. It can be a sweatshirt because – well, because this Chanel sweatshirt is my all-time favourite sweatshirt.
Unless I’m missing something, a hike is just a modern, Californian-sounding name for going on a walk. Which is a holiday activity as old as the hills – and ageless, too.
• Jess wears her own sweatshirt and trackpants. Sandals, £25.99, newlook.com. Waist bag, £45, cosstores.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Samantha Cooper at Carol Hayes Management using Mac Cosmetics and Ouai
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