Dressing for Cold Outside and Hot Inside

Dress for the room, not the walk. You will spend six hours inside where it is hot and about fifteen minutes outside where it is not, so build the outfit for the hot part and solve the cold part separately, with a coat you can put somewhere.

Get that the right way round and you stop being the one sweating in a jumper at four o'clock or shivering in a queue at seven. It is a single decision and it fixes most of the day. It matters most on the long indoor ones, and if you are going to Dreamworx at Digital the room is warm from early on.

Build It for the Hot Bit

Choose what you are wearing as if the whole day is indoors at twenty five degrees with a few hundred other people in the room. Then add exactly one thing on top for outdoors, and make it something that comes off in one move.

What never works is the middle-ground outfit that is bearable in both and good in neither. A jumper you cannot take off because there is nothing underneath it is the classic version.

What It Costs

Nothing, if you already own a coat and a couple of thin layers, which you do. The only real spend on the day is the cloakroom, and a couple of pounds is money well spent.

• The cloakroom for your coat. Cheaper than losing it and far better than carrying it around all afternoon.
• A small bag you can wear across your body, if you do not have one. Hands free matters more than you would think after hour three.
• Shoes you already know. Never a new pair on a long day.

If you are tempted to buy something new for one day, buy the thing you will wear again. A good thin layer earns its money all winter. A one-off outfit earns it once.

Layers That Come Off Cleanly

Every layer has to work on its own, because at some point it will be on its own. A vest under a shirt under a jacket gives you three outfits. A dress under a cardigan gives you two. A jumper over nothing gives you a problem at half past four.

Think about where each layer goes once it is off. If it fits in the bag, or ties round your waist without looking daft, or goes into the cloakroom with the coat, it is a good layer. If the answer is "I carry it", it is not.

Fabrics That Behave in a Hot Room

Anything that breathes and does not show a mark. Cotton, linen blends and the lighter technical synthetics are all fine. Heavy polyester in a warm room is not, however good it looks in the shop.

Watch the colours as much as the fabric. Mid greys and pale blues show every bit of heat. Black, dark colours, prints and anything with a texture to it hide it completely, which is why they are worth defaulting to on a long one.

Shoes Decide How Long You Last

Whatever you wear, you will be standing in it for hours on a floor that may well be warm and sticky. Pick a pair you have already tested, and take your socks into account, because feet swell in the heat and a shoe that fits at three can be tight by seven.

If you want the heels, wear the heels and put flats in the bag or the cloakroom. Changing halfway through is not giving in, it is the plan working exactly as intended.

The Coat Question

Take a coat. The version where you sprint from the taxi in a shirt in December is fine for one journey and miserable for the one home.

Choose it by how it behaves once you are inside rather than by how it looks on the way in. Something that folds down small, that you do not mind sitting on, or that you are happy to hand over for a few hours. A big padded coat and no cloakroom makes for a long afternoon.

What to Carry

• A hair tie, whatever your hair normally does.
• Something for the shine, if you wear makeup.
• A charger or a small power bank.
• The flats, or the heels, depending which way round you did it.

Leave everything else at home. Every extra item is one more thing to keep hold of in a warm room while you are trying to enjoy yourself.

Getting Home Without Undoing It

You come out warm into cold air, and that is the bit that catches you. Put the coat on before you go outside rather than in the street, do it up properly, and get the layer you took off six hours ago back on.

Have the way home sorted before you leave the building, too. Standing in the cold in a shirt waiting for a car that is twelve minutes away is how a good day ends badly.