Having attended dozens of Fashion Weeks across the world, well-travelled style and luxury veteran Sasha Slater has all the insider knowledge on looking effortlessly chic when your feet are killing you. Here she shares her ten top style tips exclusively with Travelista.
‘Always overpack. Always overdress.’ Ten style tips from a well-travelled fashion veteran
As head of Luxury at the Telegraph and, before that, deputy editor of Harper’s Bazaar, I have been travelling to Milan and Paris for fashion weeks in September and February since before my kids were born – and my daughter’s now at university. It’s not just the bi-annual fashion extravaganzas, there are also big brand launches all round the world: Dior in Mexico City, Chanel in Hangzhou, China, Omega in Kyoto. My job can take me anywhere and frequently does. There have been slip-ups, mind you. I once arrived at Paris fashion week with no tops or shirts, and three odd shoes, so I’ve learned the hard way that pre-prep makes the trip a lot more fun. If life’s a journey I am hopefully getting better at it along the way.
- Always overpack. If you’re travelling in a group, someone will always have hold luggage and you’ll have to wait at the carousel for them to pick it up. So that someone might as well be you. The pleasure of a swift departure from the airport is far, far outweighed by the joy of having a choice of outfits to wear when you get wherever you’re going. As superstylist Sophia Neophitou says, ‘no one ever won an award for underpacking’.
- Find your perfect luggage pairing. Personally, I am all for the four-wheeled hard-shell suitcase, its movements so fluid it could be your Strictly dance partner. From that point of view, I’m a Tumi fan. But I know plenty of hardcore travellers who swear by squishy Eastpack holdalls, ergonomic Db backpacks or the elegance of a two-wheeled Globe Trotter. Whatever happens, you want something that stands up to the punishment baggage handlers can dish out. It’s true that Anna Wintour travels with literal mountains of matching monogrammed Louis Vuitton – but then she also travels with a number of personal assistants.
- Plan ahead. And ask advice. If you know someone has just been wherever it is you’re heading, mine them for recommendations and tips. Ask colleagues. Ask Instagram. Ask whichever enormous WhatsApp groups you belong to. Most people love showing off their insider knowledge more than they like keeping secret addresses secret. Here are a couple from me: Migone in Florence for the most exquisite handmade sweets (@migonefirenze) and Contramar, an amazing fish restaurant in Mexico City (contramar.com).
- Walk everywhere. Obviously not literally everywhere but, if you can, get out of the car or bus or metro and stroll instead. For years, I travelled to Milan for fashion weeks and, between catwalk shows, I sat in the back of a black limo in a traffic jam and hated it. Then I decided to ditch the car and walk instead, and from having been nothing more than a series of gritty ring roads, Milan revealed itself to be full of charming cobbled streets, quirky specialist shops and lush courtyard gardens… These days, I clock up about 16,000 steps a day during Paris and Milan which helps my annual Pacer daily average no end. Which leads on to:
- Wear comfortable shoes. It sounds so obvious but it’s still worth saying. I spent two days of Paris fashion week this October wearing a pair of very glamorous Hermes high-heeled brogues that I thought I could last the day in. I couldn’t. I was footsore and, as a result, I was cross. I ended up buying a pair of espadrilles for 16 euros and living in those instead. And on one occasion I walked to a Dom Perignon dinner in Paris in some experimental Erdem evening slippers which fell apart en route. So take options (see lesson 1) and make sure some of those are trainers. If your feet aren’t happy, the rest of you cannot possibly have a good time.
- Have a blowdry (or a mani). I’ve learned that nothing makes you feel more at home when you arrive somewhere new than popping into an unpretentious local hair salon or nail bar and getting zhuzhed up. For starters, there’s the simple boost of looking swish and not like you’ve been stuck on a plane/train/bus for hours. Secondly, there’s a real companionship in that world of women that gives you a soft landing in a strange town. You don’t have to book ahead, just walk down a neighbourhood street and pop into wherever looks promising.
- Overdress. Since you’ve already overpacked, this shouldn’t be too hard to achieve. Dress codes abroad offer more leeway and give you a chance to reinvent your look without judgement. The bottom line is that looking smart is cheering and wearing the same clothes day after day is depressing. So do pack that pretty La Double J dress you don’t feel you’ve worn enough and crack it out for an al fresco dinner on the beach. If you’re going to be on a sun lounger or in a spa, instead of relying on the hotel’s towelling dressing gown, bring a glam one of your own – mine are cotton kimonos bought in a vintage shop in Tokyo – so you stand out from the herd. And nice pool slides to match: those weird waffle-textured slippers resorts give you to shuffle around in are not the route to joy.
- Get your culture hits in short bursts. Call me a philistine but I find it’s very hard to really focus on more than 10 pictures, sculptures, frescoes or whatever at a time. Much better to dive into a museum or art gallery and spend three minutes per picture really looking at a handful of masterpieces than to trudge aimlessly down miles of dusty museum corridors glancing at bust after boring Roman bust. On the other hand, if I’m travelling for work, I always make a point of carving out half an hour for myself between appointments and diving into a museum or gallery and giving myself a blast of art. For that, I prefer a small jewel of a museum to the great big classic. So in Paris I head for the Musee Jacquemart Andre (musee-jacquemart-andre.com) not the Louvre. In Milan it’s the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum (museobagattivalsecchi.org) instead of the grand old Pinacoteca di Brera. Little and often is the key here.
- Drink local. My wine journalist friend’s golden rule is, if you’re eating local, drink local. Nothing goes better with pizza than a nice Neapolitan red, and equally manchego and jamon pair brilliantly with a dry sherry from Jerez. More than that, though, I always make a point of trying the local cocktail. A Bellini in Harry’s Bar in Venice is the obvious example, but the same applies to a mojito in Havana or an Aviation (my new discovery – try it) in Manhattan. But I do draw the line at drinking Ricard in Provence – or anywhere.
- Get in the swim. I mean that literally. Wherever you are, get close to water. If there’s a swimmable river, dive in. If you’re on a beach, don’t just look at the waves, jump them. If you’re in a boat pottering round the coast of Corfu, get off the sundeck and into the sea. Never mind that blowdry you’ve just got yourself, immersion in water – be it a plunge pool, lap pool, jacuzzi or just your own en-suite bathtub – is a game changer. So I always pack a swimsuit (because you never know) and I always ask for a room with a bath.
