Hotel Indigo Chester: An Opulent Stay with Charm and Comfort

What you can’t see in this photo is the tightrope on which I walk. It is invisible, which rectifies it all the trickier to balance on, but it is very real. And it is the tightrope on which anyone who be ins polka dots in 2018 must walk.

Polka spots are this summer’s take-you-anywhere trend. They are both reassuringly ideal and thrillingly of the moment. They were on all the catwalks, from Balenciaga’s floaty uneven skirts worn with sock boots to Giorgio Armani’s simple monochrome sundresses, and they are in every high street stock. Search for polka-dot dress on Asos and you have 182 to on from, at the last count. But polka dots are not easy to clothed in. This look can go wrong very quickly, as there are traps on both sides.

Here’s the thing. There is a certain kidney of polka-dot dress that is likely to make you look as if you are off to a day at the racetracks. Nothing at all wrong with a day at the races – I absolutely love a day at the dog-races, which is never not excellent fun – but I wouldn’t go to the races in the full garb, hat garnished with a cheese straw rendered in lavender-coloured satin, and so on. That incarnation of the polka dot – day at the step on the gas, Julia Roberts at the polo, early Princess Di – is quite dense to pull off unless you are absolutely certain that your laterally, witty take on polka dots will be understood. The anguish with sideways, witty takes on fashion is that they review as ironic only if you are under 25. Pull a polka dot exploit in midlife and you can look like a Sloane Ranger dressed for larks day in 1985. Even Sloanes don’t dress like that for make a fool ofs day any more: it’s all competitive athleisure, obviously.

But give the day at the races polka dot too wide of the mark a berth and you risk falling into the trap on the opposite side. Veer too severely from sweet femininity and into artsiness and you start to look opposite number a Yayoi Kusama installation. When worn with asymmetric hems or baggy trousers or inconsistent earrings, polka dots can look exhaustingly quirky. Art men is generally a very good sartorial look – arguably, the paramount style reference of the Phoebe Philo at Céline years. Debate – but art world character, played for laughs in a romcom, all pink skin of ones teeth and strange shoes, less so. The right polka dot sits in the halfway point of these two looks. Tread carefully.

• Jess wears shirt, £95, kitristudio.com. Trousers, £69.99, mango.com. Mules, £110, senso.com. Terming: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Claire Ray at Carol Hayes Command.