Creme de la Closet

This week I asked The Tab team for their favourite items of clothing. From the trusty jumper that is starting to fall into holes to the classic little black dress. I think when it comes to our favourites, we all have a little bit of a child in us. The irrational child who wore their tiger suit for 6 days in a row and had to be forced out with threats that otherwise it would eventually rot off. But it’s exam term, so embrace your trusties and wear them to revise in. I just hope you have moved on from the tiger suit…

LOTTIE UNWIN chooses her hand-me-down riding boots. New things are never as nice as the old; the block heels of these battered brown boots have been lovingly restored by our local cobbler time and time again.  With every wear they are that bit more personal, one splattered with paint.  The authoritative sound they make when I walk has all the drama of a cowboy striding into a saloon, or a Jimmy Choo clad director pacing into a boardroom, and, on a hungover day with jeans or a night in the pub with tights and a dress, somewhere in between those two is where I want to be.

ZOAH HEDGES-STOCKS says Unusually, my favourite item of clothing originally belonged to my mother.
Borrowing garments from your parents is not usually an advisable style choice, but I really treasure a pair of Levi 501s that she bought in the eighties and was still wearing during my childhood. Customised by a family friend with patches of silk and velvet, embroidered with flowers, jewels, and metallic thread, these were no ordinary Levi's. If that all sounds too hippyish to bear, imagine a three-year-old Zoah, if you will, rather enamoured with Mummy's magical jeans, and being promised her very own pair.
Adorable, no? A historian even then, when asked what I would like embroidered on my miniature pair, I confidently requested a pyramid (Ancient Egypt was an early passion). I was heartbroken when I grew too big to fit into those jeans, and being given my mother's old pair brought back some of that childlike excitement.