How to Wear a Leather Skirt for Work, Rest & Play

Last Week I threatened a “How to wear a Leather Skirt” post.

Well, here it is.

More specifically I threatened to revive a series from the early days of my blog where I used to create polyvore outfits demonstrating how I would wear a variety of unlikely trends for “Work, rest and play”.

The aim of todays post, therefore, is not just to demonstrate the fact that you can wear lots of different tops and shoes with a black skirt. Frankly if you if you need a whole blog post to tell you that you probably shouldn’t be allowed to dress yourself at all. Rather it is to convince you that a leather pencil skirt is not just a one trick pony, but instead a vital and versatile addition to your wardrobe. Indeed, it is an item that you can wear to work, rest and play in.

These days I’ve ditched Polyvore in favour of playing dress up in my own wardrobe, but here’s how I would wear this leather pencil skirt for work, rest and play.

WORK

This one is perhaps the hardest sell. If you work in a creative agency or something you can probably wear whatever you want, but I’m thinking more of the sort of offices I used to work in. The call centres, and the customer support departments and the reception desks where you want to look smart and add a little bit of your own personality, but the dress code is quite conservative and anything too outrageous would mean you have to spend all day explaining your outfit choices.

A leather pencil skirt can look very smart for this sort of job. Keep the heels sturdy and sensible, and the tops not too tight. Here I’ve worn it with a buttoned up cardigan or a white blouse (this one from House of Foxy) and Clarks suede buckle shoes.

I also accessorised with a notebook. It’s been a long time since I worked in a proper office, they probably all have iPads these days.

REST

By “rest”, I mean downtime. I don’t mean to lounge around at home watching TV as only a fool would opt for a leather pencil skirt for those purposes.

A leather pencil skirt might feel smart, but its rock n roll vibe means you can dress it down for a trip to the pub or out to the shops and to grab a coffee. Wear it with a t-shirt and flats to keep it casual.

Here I’m wearing it with Converse and a striped t-shirt for a really casual look, or slightly smarter with a loose black t-shirt (which is actually the dress from the MyStyleMyDress challenge) and ballet flats.

PLAY

This is the leather pencil skirts obvious home. By play I don’t, obviously, mean like playing tag in the street with your friends, because I’m 36 and I don’t do that any more these days (my friends don’t live close enough). By play I’m talking more about taking your leather pencil skirt out on the town.

A leather pencil skirt obviously lends itself to being a bit rock n roll, so I’ve worn it with a selection of animal prints and a lot of red lipstick. Being slightly edgier than a regular pencil skirt I think it’s great to wear in a slightly more chic style as well. With hair up and a blouse with a few buttons undone it looks elegant (well it would do on someone else!) in a way that wouldn’t work as well with a normal pencil skirt

How would you wear yours?