This Is Where I Go for Truly Chic Outfit Ideas

When it comes to the outfit tweak (a subtle flourish that turns an assortment of clothes into something worth being seen in), few are more accomplished in the task than Jenny Walton. Knotting a silk scarf around her ballerina bun, carrying a vintage purse that looks like it's made from melting marshmallows or (my personal favourite) pinning brooches around her shirt collar so it sprouts blossoms are all tricks her 190,000+ Instagram followers are familiar with. If further proof is needed that her accessories game is on point, note that her toothbrush—a striped design from L'Officine Universelle Buly 1803—matches her enamel Roxanne Assoulin bracelet almost perfectly.

Walton is an illustrator and fashion director at The Sartorialist, her fiancé's street style blog, so perhaps it's unsurprising that the woman makes dental hygiene look chic. In all seriousness, she's a real master of the high/low mix. Her wardrobe roughly breaks down, she tells me, into 50% vintage, 30% designer and 20% high street.

This means one outfit could happily consist of a Zara sweater, a homemade puffball skirt, a pair of J.Crew door-knocker earrings and a Mansur Gavriel top-handle bag. It's a delicate balance where no element shouts louder than another, one that takes so much more skill than wearing top-to-toe designer hot off the runway presses.

"I do sometimes shop Zara and COS, but it makes me feel really great when I can buy something vintage or from a small local designer who's handcrafting their pieces and has a small environmental impact but a large impact on their local community," says Walton. Fe, a sustainable brand that handmakes knitwear in Brooklyn, is a recent discovery of hers.

This mindful way of shopping means she's also a great outfit recycler. Walton recently posted a video on Instagram Stories of a familiar outfit; it was the exact one she was wearing when she was first photographed by Schuman. It consisted of a grey Fair Isle knit, a sweeping blue car coat and an elegant wool skirt.

Her weaknesses are anything by Miuccia Prada and vintage earrings. She owns over 100 pairs and has amassed one of the best trinket collections I've ever come across on Instagram. A recent snap of Walton's hotel bathroom during London Fashion Week showed a white towel covered in earrings by Wald Berlin, Annie Costello Brown, Miu Miu and Prada, and tangles of CVC Stones necklaces. Her favourite shopping spots in the capital are Grays Antique Centre and Dover Street Market, where she once bought a teeny-tiny cropped shirt by Maison Margiela.

If it sounds like I'm slightly overawed by Walton's style (or like I've been tracking her shopping movements like a bloodhound), I'm afraid it's guilty as charged. I love how she'll pair a thrifted primrose-coloured shift with rubber Prada flatforms, or a wafty Ulla Johnson skirt with an Etsy purse and Maryam Nassir Zadeh mules.

What I really want to know, though, is how does she pieces each outfit together so it doesn't look too (for want of a better phrase) put together. Unfortunately, she hasn't quite nailed down a fail-safe formula for the rest of us. "I'm very trial and error," she says. "I usually start with one piece I really love—which could be a top or a pair of shoes—and I keep adding supporting characters to that outfit until hopefully I'm fully clothed."

See more of Jenny Walton's style 

Next up, the cult buys of 2018's street style set.