Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: don’t want to get your Big Winter Coat out just yet? Try ‘onion dressing’

It’s time to learn the art of layering – and we’re talking a crew neck with a ballet wrap and blazer, not full-on outdoor explorer Is layering an art? Probably not in the traditional sense. We are not talking the Bayeux tapestry here. No one is going to queue round the block to admire the subtle interplay between your Uniqlo Heattech and your cashmere crewneck. Still, I think it’s nice to romanticise this stuff. The deeply unpoetic truth is that it is going to get cold and wearing one item of clothing at a time simply isn’t going to cut it.

So let’s pretend that the sliver of white T-shirt beneath a jumper, the shirt collar poking out above a cardigan, or the ballet wrap over a snug top are not acts of basic thermal self-preservation, but composition. A creative statement about proportion, texture, colour and self-expression. If you have to wear half your wardrobe at once, you may as well make a masterpiece out of it. The avant-garde layering term to drop in order to sound like a connoisseur this season is onion dressing. Not the most romantic name, but a clear visual for the most refined form of layering, which is fine layers rather…