The Basics Of Basics; How To Build A Weekend Wardrobe

One way to dress with style is to build a wardrobe from nifty pieces, accessorizing with flair. Or, you can focus carefully on basic, fundamental, quality of even the most casual clothing. Optimize a uniform, if you will.

Let's look at the weekend, shall we? Given that another one is just around the corner? I live in black tees.

But black tees are a dime a dozen. What makes this basic better than any other black tee, and why has it found its way into my weekend uniform?

A wardrobe based on basics, if you will, has to do a few things absolutely right.

• Define the desired silhouette
• Fit like crazy
• Perfect fabric
• Shine with just a few details

Getting dressed is, for all intents and purposes, drawing a picture of your silhouette with cloth. You may want to accentuate the silhouette you've got, or you may want to presto change-oh it up a bit. In my case, at the silhouette level, I've got broad shoulders, a long torso, and what was, before children, a small waist. I still pretend about the waist. So when I define a Katherine Hepburn-ish silhouette, I feel especially stylish, having drawn the picture of myself that I want to inhabit.

Fit is fit. Nothing too tight, nothing too lose. Perfect fabric is perfect fabric. And details should be seen just at the edge of perception, visible on close inspection, the effect felt at a distance.

For black tee optimization I rely on Petit Bateau. Their cotton is knit to just the right thickness and stretch. I hear they don't work so well on more curvy people, but for us angular folk they are perfect. I can't estimate how many I've owned over the last couple of decades.

I have been known to switch up my black tees with a white shirt. So adventurous like that.

But this really isn't just any white shirt. It has a slightly low neckline, a graceful collar, and little white stripes in the weave. Audrey Talbot, in case you're inspired.

I also wear khakis. I'm very picky. I've been wearing my son's for a year or two now. Because everyone's in denial about one thing or another. So I finally bought a new pair. To create the afore-mentioned silhouette, I need my khakis to fit tight at the hips and then fall straight to the ground without stopping to chat with my thighs. No stretch. It's quite hard to find nowadays. These just-purchased L.L. Beans fulfill the fit criteria, but the fabric is a little too unrefined. Oh well. It's the journey. And I love the little blue striped waist detail, even if no one sees it but me.

As anyone does who tends towards the classics, but lives in Northern California, I wear jeans a lot. A lot. When I go to San Francisco, it's Seven for All Mankind's Ginger version. Tight at the hip, dark wash, wide leg. Elongating short legs and balancing the long torso for all I'm worth. But on the weekends, I pull out my Levi 501s. Those buttons just slay me.

You might be wondering, how does a 53-year old woman wandering around in white or black shirts, khakis, and jeans, lay claim to any style? That's what shoes, belts, and earrings are for.

Nothing elaborate. The quilt of the shoes (Manolo Blahnik), crocodile skin of the belt (Wilkes Bashford private label), and diamondness of the diamonds, provide as much subtle effect as I feel like taking on come the weekend. And if I fall from grace, and wind up in black Aerosoles, or flipflops - because Sturdy Gals cherish happy toes, if I leave off the belt because those two kids expanded my ribcage enough that my waist abhors restraint, the outfits degrade pretty gracefully. Graceful degradation is key, on weekends.

Have a lovely one. Weekend, I mean. In whatever uniform suits you.