Building a grown-up wardrobe: Part 1

Recently I've been thinking more and more about building a grown-up wardrobe. To me this means stopping the Primark binges and spontaneous high-street splurges, and instead carefully and calculatedly (yes, it's a word!) buying more expensive, better quality, stand-out love-forever pieces which I'll still want to wear in 20 years time.

Regular readers may have noticed that there haven't been any posts about things I've brought recently, and that's because since going freelance, I've hardly brought any clothes at all. My amazing uncharacteristic restraint has really spurred me on to want to start buying more sensibly, and today I think I may have found my first grown-up-cherish-for-a-lifetime purchase.

As soon as I saw this silk rose print Alexander McQueen cape I was overcome with a desire to buy it. At £455 it's not cheap, but it's out of my 4-figure reach either. I'm not saying that I'm going to buy it immediately, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. For one, I can hardly think of anything it wouldn't go with (within reason obvs). You could dress it down like Matches have done here, or wear it to spice up an LBD. It's striking bold pattern transcends trends and time, and would always be as beautiful and fascinating as it is today. As far as investment pieces go, it's already ticking all the boxes, and that's before you even begin to consider the cultural significance of this piece being designed by Sarah Burton in the year following Lee McQueen's death. Yes, this could very well be the first piece in my hero wardrobe.