I’m not going to wax poetic about wardrobe basics, and I won’t call your closet incomplete if it doesn’t include the Goldilocks of white T-shirts. The topic of fashion building blocks—why they’re important, which pieces count, where to buy the best ones—has been extensively covered in print magazines and across the internet, including this very publication.
Instead, I come to you with a thought experiment that will hopefully unlock a more exciting chapter of your style: Rather than buying the “right” wardrobe basic, what if you opted for one that’s a little “wrong”? A piece simple enough that it can still be considered a staple but is subverted slightly beyond what’s expected? An asymmetric tank with one strap as opposed to the standard two. Murky, heather-gray jeans instead of bright Americana blue. A sky blue quarter-sleeve baseball tee instead of that same all-white crewneck you’ve worn for years. (Thank you, Zoë Kravitz, for the reference.)
This thread of logic is part of what I’ve come to accept as a cardinal rule in my almost decade of working in fashion: When having doubts when getting dressed, always choose the silhouette that’s classic with a twist—the zestier basic, as I’ve come to call these. Like an extra squeeze of lemon on avocado toast and the tangy tease of hint-of-lime tortilla chips, an offbeat wardrobe essential elevates your style the same way citrus does to a dish.
One crucial note, though, is that the item still needs to be recognizable as a wardrobe basic; otherwise, it becomes too convoluted to style for everyday. A tank with one too many cutouts is a going-out top meant for the club, not the office, and super-wide palazzo jeans skew costumey. A good guideline to follow is to look for one design detail (two, at most): a keyhole cutout, a ruched waistline, an unexpected color or textile, for example. The cotton pointelle tanks and raglan tees from Cou Cou Intimates and COS’s high-collared and sheer button-downs come to mind.
