The March Issue

The 10 lessons I’m teaching my daughter about style

There’s a certain type of woman who never seems to have a style crisis. You know the one. She always looks good - not try-hard good, just effortlessly, consistently good. She’s wearing a version of the same thing everywhere she goes, dressed up or dressed down, and she never seems to question it. She has a formula, and she trusts it completely.

Caroline Bessette Kennedy was that woman. With the release of Love Story the internet has gone into full ‘get the look’ mode - and honestly, I get it. She had something you couldn’t quite name. But you can’t buy your way to her formula.

Instead of getting her look, what you can do is something better: find your own formula. The women who always look put-together aren’t buying everything - they’ve worked out what works for them and they repeat it, refine it, trust it. They never have the ‘what do I wear to...’ moment, because they trust themselves.

For me, that repetitiveness is true style.

I’ve been watching Love Story with my 24-year-old daughter, and I keep thinking about the things I wish someone had told me at her age - the expensive mistakes I could have avoided, the confidence I could have had so much sooner. Your 20s are the best time to experiment, but there’s a difference between experimenting with intention and just buying whatever the internet tells you to this week.

So here it is. Everything I want her to know.