Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: Forget date night – I’d much rather dress up to party with my friends

It is strange that we talk about date-night dressing so much when we all know that the most fun nights to outfit-plan are really nights out with friends. Well, not actually strange at all, just the patriarchy doing what it does, I guess, and making it feel as if the world as seen from a male point of view – in this case, the view of a frock from the other side of a restaurant table on date night – is automatically the point of view that matters.

In a fashion context, it just makes no sense. I mean, I accept that I’m generalising wildly here, and I don’t for a moment claim to speak for everyone. But my own experience, which I would wager is a fairly common one, is that it is an evening out with friends when I’m going to get maximum appreciation for the fashion content of my outfit. Men just want you to look … nice? Which is fine, but there’s a lot more to style than that. Like I say, I am generalising, and not all dates are boy-girl anyway, but still: for many women, dressing up for friends is one of life’s under-appreciated joys.

On a friends night, you can be wildly overdressed for pizza and your pals will appreciate your look for what it is: enthusiasm for their company. Or you can turn up in your work clothes because you had to run straight from the office, and they won’t give a toss and just be thrilled to see you. You can wear your new leather trousers and know you will get the chance to tell, at great length, the triumphant story of how you tracked them down on Vinted. You can wear totally impractical shoes and nobody will roll their eyes when it means you have to get an Uber to a bar a quarter of a mile away.

Fashion is a love language in female friendship. It is woven into the fabric of camaraderie between women. There is no place on earth where you will be more generously complimented than in front of the mirrors of the ladies’ loos, after everyone involved has had a few spicy margs. I’m not being sexist – it might well be that the same goes for men, but I don’t hang out by the urinals so I can’t speak to that. What I can tell you is that chat about clothes is, first and foremost, a delivery mechanism for support and cheerleading, woman to woman. Wear something bold, and you will get flowers for your originality; wear something low-key, and you will be lauded for your subtle good taste. Style is a channel of communication.

Some features will always get a mention, when women talk about clothes. For instance: dresses and skirts that have pockets. Responding “it has pockets!” when another woman remarks upon what you are wearing is shorthand for “I enjoy fashion even though I have more important things to think about, and I think I recognise you as a kindred spirit”. See also: responding to an admiring comment about a pretty pair of shoes by saying they are “surprisingly comfy” and playing down your snazzy dress by revealing, without being asked, that it is 10 years old and from Zara.

But the love language of fashion between the girls isn’t just about solidarity, it is about joy. It is about clothes that are chosen not because they make you look taller or thinner, but because they make you smile. Which are, of course, the clothes that make you truly beautiful. It is about outfits that get captured in selfies, that you treasure not because of what you were wearing but because of the good time you had, and so are knitted into core memories. Nights out with friends, with pals who know your silly side as well as your smart side, who might rib you for wearing double leopard-print but would defend to the hilt your right to do so if anyone said a word against it, are the nights that are the most fun to get dressed for. Date night does not have a monopoly on love.

Model: Amaka at Milk. Hair and makeup: Sophie Higginson using Bumble & Bumble and Refy. Cherry earrings, £14, bag, £46, and heels, £44, all River Island. Top, £45.99, and trousers, £27.99, both Zara