The Best Beige Lace Tops For Layering This Season

I used to hate beige lace tops. Defined by people who didn’t want to pick a colour or style but still wanted to look like they tried? Sure. Go to. Then I wore one under a blazer to lunch I didn’t want to dress up for and was told by the woman at the next table that she loved my top. Said opinion retired very quietly that day. So allow me to apologise properly. Beige lace, I took you for granted and I apologise it took a stranger complimenting me over sea bream to realise. And what makes a good one? The lace itself, obvs.

Not the flat, printed kind that looks like it’s been screen-printed on polyester but the stuff that actually has texture. Proper scalloped edges. Maybe a little pull in the pattern from the thread being pulled taught. Hold it up to the light, it should look like someone meant it to be see-through, not like there’s no actual reason it’s see-through. And the beige is important too. There’s a warm biscuit beige that sits nicely on your skin and a flat, sandy beige that looks ever so slightly sanitised. Go for the former. The one that looks like it couldn’t NOT be in your wardrobe rotation. You know. Rather than the one that looks like it jumped out of a hospital waiting room.
Style wise – this is a layering piece before anything else. Throw it under a tailored jacket and leave the sleeves pushed up. It looks considered, not lazy. Under dungarees or a slip dress it does double duty, with lace visible at neckline and cuffs doing more work than an entire outfit’s worth of accessories. It looks good with denim. Duuh. But it also breaks up anything too ‘business’-ey. Throw it under a grey suit and suddenly you’re not marching into your boss’s office for a ticking off. Trust me.

Speaking of occasions; this is your go to/top that solves the “smart but not trying too hard” problem better than anything else in your wardrobe. Weddings you’re not getting married at that take place during the day. Family lunches where someone will comment on your outfit regardless of what you wear. Running from office straight to drinks with no time to change in between. It also photographs well in low light, which no one warns you about until you’ve been in half a dozen group photos and look like you’re emitting your own light for no reason?? Please accept that reason is 100% the lace.