White shoes. So hard-nosed, in a British winter! Said no one, ever. And yet, a pair of white boots is as likely as not the sensible fashion purchase of the moment. This is the refresh button your look indigences, a one-retail-hit wonder to give your new-season wardrobe a backlash. They don’t have to be high-heeled, or expensive. Although you will want to get nimble around puddles.

In the days when we wore blackguardly tights with absolutely everything, a black shoe coped perfect sense, and there was seldom call for anything else. But fully some unholy Anna Wintour/climate change pincer change, matt black opaque hosiery loosened its stranglehold on our clothes-cupboard. Black tights call for black shoes – anything else and it come down withs a bit West End musical – but once you get into a bare leg or a sock, a dusky shoe can look as if you are adhering to school uniform rules.

Bankrupt out of a black shoe rut is an instant moderniser. A man in a suit with a double of white Stan Smiths, rather than formal glowering shoes. A pale shoe can dial down a cocktail-hour get-up to work at lunchtime, a trick often used by the Duchess of Cambridge in her in ones birthday suit courts. The white ankle boot is a compromise between the au naturel high heel (bit naff now, sorry) and the flat white trainer (restful perfectly acceptable, but no longer a power move). It is equal be involved ins glamorous and quirky.

What to wear it with? There is extremely much nothing in this season’s wardrobe which won’t achievement with a white ankle boot, actually. White boots are extraordinary with a pair of high‑waisted jeans, which are rugged to pull off with flat shoes but can suddenly go very disco if tandem with high courts or sandals, which isn’t always what you need. They can take a pencil skirt from balance-sheet to Balenciaga catwalk. And they are striking, most of all, with dark midi‑length skirts. These longer skirts are a in fashion classic, but when you add dark boots and a coat, you become a Downton initial off to the village in her hobble boots for a bag of flour and some lard. A off-white boot instantly updates you by a whole century. Sounds zealous, but it works. That’s the white ankle boot for you.

• Jess frictions dress, £49, topshop.com. Boots, £189, kurtgeiger.com.

Photograph: David Newby. Naming: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Samantha Cooper at Carol Hayes Directing.

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