Cathy Horyn is returning to fashion criticism, Banana Republic is showing at New York Fashion Week, a men’s style section from The New York Times, and more news from the style trenches this week.

• Knitwear brand Pringle of Scotland will celebrate its 200th anniversary with a large exhibition in Edinburgh.
• Cathy Horyn is returning to fashion criticism, and will be covering New York and Paris Fashion Week for The Cut.
• The New York Times is launching a 12 to 14-page men’s style section that will appear in print once a month.
• H&M is producing a co-branded collection with music and arts festival Coachella.
• For the first time ever Banana Republic will be showing their men’s and women’s collections at New York Fashion Week. 
• Come March, Museum at FIT will stage the first exhibition dedicated to the career and signature style of Lauren Bacall. 
• Reality show House of DVF is coming back for a second season with eight new episodes.

Fun Fashion Fact

Did you know that British model Erin O’Connor is one of the only living people to have appeared on a specially commissioned set of first-class postage stamps for Royal Mail. The images for the “Fabulous Hats” set were shot by photographer Nick Knight.

This ensemble was inspired by an outfit from the Gap’s 2015 Spring collection. Combine citron or chartreuse with olive and cognac. The combination looks particularly fresh with denim, which complements the warm palette with a cool shade of blue. 

Citron might not be a colour that you want to wear close to your face, so I’m showing two different approaches. The outfit on the left features citron as a statement, whereas the others feature citron as a more subtle accent. Feel free to substitute citron with chartreuse, which is an earthier, dirtier and greener version of citron.

Statement Citron 

The casual rendition is similar to the outfit on the Gap model. Combine a citron pullover with a pair of blue jeans, and finish off the outfit with an olive scarf, olive jacket and cognac footwear. The cognac belt is optional. I’ve chosen a cognac bag to tie in with the booties, but choose any colour that works with the palette.

Substitute the pullover with a shirt or tee if that’s more your style. Choose a different style of olive topper if parkas aren’t your thing. A citron coat over a citron pullover will make an even bolder colour statement.  

Subtle Citron 

The dressier renditions are appropriate for a business casual office. I’ve chosen black bottoms to make the outfits more accessible. Pair a black skirt or pair of trousers with an olive blouse or pullover in a solid or a pattern. Complete the outfit with black footwear, hosiery as needed and a topper in either cognac or chartreuse.

The centre outfit showcases a cognac suede jacket with a solid drape front olive blouse. The outfit on the right combines a patterned olive and cognac pullover with a chartreuse houndstooth jacket. The citron is represented by the handbag. Finish off the look with jewellery, eyewear, headgear and watch as desired. 

Feel free to combine the colour palette in any way at all. A pair of olive pants or olive skirt looks great with a citron top and cognac footwear. Or leave out the olive, like I will, and wear citron with denim and cognac.

While attending the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Belinda Lanks noticed a new trend: Marketing wearables as a way to alleviate the anxiety of overextended, hyperconnected women: “Unfortunately, playing on women’s anxiety — about our bodies, our hair, our skills as mothers, our professional ambition — is effective. Women’s magazines are expert at this; so is the fashion industry. It’s disheartening to see an additional industry piling on, but it’s not a dumb strategy.”

Venture Beat, who also attended the gadget convention, reports that “many wearables makers remain very focused on the technology and the market opportunity, but not focused enough on the long-term wearability of their devices.”

In the meantime, gadget rental company Lumoid is launching a new programme that allows you to try out five fitness trackers of your choosing for a week. Not a bad strategy.

Fab Links from Our Members

UmmLila reports that David Bowie turned 68 last week. She enjoyed Vogue’s tips on how to get the eternally cool look of David Bowie 2 different ways.

Suz thought Bowie fans might also enjoy this “head-turning” gif that shows 50 years’ worth of the singer’s hairstyles.

La Belle Demimondaine tried out the KonMari method from Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing“. La Belle tackled her wardrobe and found the process life-changing.

Net-a-Porter is revamping the Levis 501. Angie says she is SO in.

Angie also lets us know that over at Already Pretty, Sally is providing tips on how to make a grown-up style fun and unique, and how to take proper care of wool garments.

It’s important to look at your wardrobe as a whole. It should be a collection of pieces that relate to each other. If it isn’t, you’ll end up with a collection of items you love, but that are hard to pull together into outfits. This leads to the all too common feeling of having lots of stuff and nothing to wear. That’s why I suggest thinking about your wardrobe in terms of three wardrobe capsule archetypes: mix-and-match capsules, category capsules and activity capsules. It takes discipline to manage your wardrobe and plan your purchases this way, but you will reap the reward.

The capsule approach is not for everyone. And even if you do plan your wardrobe carefully it’s hard to always have it top of mind. It is useful to have shortcuts to help you make decisions while you’re shopping. One of these is what I call the wardrobe orphan prevention test. It has two steps, the first one being to ask yourself the following simple question before you make a purchase:

Can I think of at least three different, complete outfits that combine this item with other items in my wardrobe?

I went through this thought process when I recently purchased J.Crew’s Maddie Pant in red.

• It would work well with several of my white tops, combined with white footwear and a belt.
• I liked the idea of combining them with some of my light blue tops.
• I love blush with tomato red and white, so the red pants would work with my blush tops, blush belt, blush or white moto jacket, and white footwear.
• The red pants would work well with my citron trench coat and tops.

The number of potential outfits put my mind at ease, so I purchased the pants. 

Since outfits that you create in your head don’t always work out in practice, step two of the test is to try on the item in the outfit combinations you imagined and make sure that it has earned a spot in your wardrobe. 

My outfit creation session with the new red pants confirmed that they do work well with my white shirts and new white loafers and booties. They also look nice with my light blue pullover and shirts. They did not work with my blush tops because the silhouettes and weights aren’t the best match for the style of pants. I also didn’t fancy the pants with my moto jackets, but loved them with blazers and trench coats. So I started creating outfits with my ink blazer, seersucker blazer, tartan blazer and citron trench coat. These toppers, which I didn’t consider when I was looking at the red pants in store, opened up a whole new world of patterned and solid tops that I could work into the outfits. As a result, even more outfits were created, and the red pants passed the test with flying colours.

It is a privilege that we can purchase items and return them if they don’t work out. It means that we can use the best dressing room of all — the one in our home — to confirm that the items we buy can be incorporated into outfits that we love.