Pailettes Please
If the sun isn't going to come to us then I am going to conjure sunlight up with the power of Paillettes, small sparkly circular discs that shimmer and spangle, often confused with a sequin but different due to sequins having hole in the centre in order to be stitched down where as the paillette has a single hole at the top so that it swings, making them much more boujee looking and noisy to wear which in my opinion adds to the appeal, the French word for sequin is pailette, but on that we can agree to disagree as I like them both equally.
If you are a fan of Trinny (does she even need a surname these days?) then you know she believes we should wheel out our sequins no matter the month, day or time. This isn't something I do, while I love Trinny and her attitude to most things (except her love of fast fashion - namely Zara) I cant ever see myself reaching for sequins for a work day or to hit the supermarket, I put this down to Trinny and myself having vastly different weekdays, while I am on the school run she might be at a meeting or lunch in London, having said that while we all know the power of a sequin during the winter season, allow me to state my case for sequins to be pushed higher up the list of fabrics we should include in our summer event wardrobe.
Festive sequins can take a back seat for summer, black for sure, I love wearing black in summer but a black sequin? I am not ruling it out completely but it would be outfit depending, that's just not where my head is at. I'm thinking white, lemon and oyster shell, think iridescent cream with a hint of pink, then gold, rose gold, silver and rose pink, then I am going to throw in a curve ball of red, mermaid tail green and cobalt blue.
Next up you choose the size of your sequin, swinging pailettes, rows of sequins or clusters of small placement seed sequins, each are beautiful, you just need to decide the level of drama you want. A fully sequinned dress in a block colour being a 10 on the drama scale regardless if it is mini or maxi.
Sequinned separates are where the party starts for me, a simple pencil skirt shape peppered in tonal sequins or a flared wide sequin trouser, throw on a blazer and you have a party look that won't disappoint. Add a white t-shirt and chunky jewellery for extra “I can do” subtle points.
If you don't have a sequin dress, this is absolutely not your signpost to go and buy one as its not something you will wear a lot, but if you want involved with these shimmery little discs then I would recommend you hit resale platforms, there are enough sparkles out there for every magpie, sequin or paillette!
