Day 6 I know I know I'm late again and the white shirt

Cooking evidently interferes with my ability to write on time. Okay, no, I just have a crappy sleep schedule right now that has me sleeping at 5AM and waking up well past noon. But I did make a delicious beef stroganoff. Probably as loyal to the original dish as chicken balls are to whatever Chinese dish they were bastardized from, but it was delicious. Nothing quite like beef in thick creamy stew with noodles for a cold day. 

This will be written in the style of the Vogue editorials I spent half my life reading. Both mocking and a sincere tribute to the endlessly verbose women who elevated fashion to high literature.

Day 6: Describe an item of clothing you wear now that someday your son or daughter will want to own. What is it, and why will your child want to wear it in twenty years.

Vogue junior stylist Lacey Wong reminisces on her style - and that one shirt she's kept for more than twenty years.

'I'm 27 now. I developed my own style, far from my mother's soft and tailored closet many years ago. Yet in between the angular black Vuitton jacket from this fall and the trailing grey jersey skirts of my closet is an oddity. White, ruffled, well out of date but still perfectly preserved. 

Ask my mother about my style, go on. I know she doesn't approve. She grew up in the early 2000s, when the likes of Kate Middleton dominated the fashion scene. In an old picture of us two she's wearing a lavender silk sheath dress, paired delicately with cream kitten heels and a petal pink cardigan. She even has me in a little ruffled and floral print dress. In another picture, she's barely 20, perched peacock- proud on a chair in a flawless white chiffon dress with silver embroidery. 

Even now, well into her 50s, mum was still mistaken for my sister on a family trip. Seeing her perfectly fitted, peach linen dress, I can see why she looks young, but not how we could be related. Standing beside her is me, propped up on my black Prada spikes that I brought all the way to Athens. I can see one guy in the background ogling my oversized grey t-shirt, tucked into my trusty black leather skirt and comfy black cashmere shawl. 

When I was young, our mother-daughter past time was shopping. My father didn't approve, he wanted me out hiking and swimming and skiing. My mother liked that too, but only when I had the perfect hiking boots that matched my green khaki shorts and deceivingly common-looking white t-shirt. Or in just the right swimsuit that had a bowtie over the chest. Or the Swiss-imported pink snow suit that earned my 'ski bunny' title for many years to come. 

Whether in J. Crew for perfect cowl-necked sweaters or Coach for the right pale pink work bag with an Hermes scarf, my mother brought me along. In J. Crew she bought me pearl-embroidered headbands. In Kate Spade she bought me the heart-shaped purse with a shiny gold chain. I know girlfriends who would have been delighted to grow up with that. I was, too, for many years. Then I discovered the New York 00's fashion scene. Grunge paired with sky high heels. Black all over. Insouciant messy hair with giant Dior glasses. I was in love.

My mother scowled the first time I came home from university. Instead of the delicate champagne silk ribbon-tie shirt she bought me, I was wearing an oversized black mohair sweater with leather pants. 

It seems like my Swarovski encrusted apple couldn't have fallen further away from the style tree. But when my parents packed up and moved to Florida, as so many older people do now to escape the bitter northern cold, I salvaged through her closet. 

I set away the pink wool vintage Chanel suit to be stored. I pawed through her hundred odd collection of watercolour silk scarves. But I kept a Shakespearean white shirt. It's a strange material, not quite silk and not quite chiffon. Airy, ruffled and sheer, but fitted. Mum said it was older than me. She got it from grandmama. 

She fingered the shirt and smiled. 

"I haven't worn this since I was 19." 

"Then why did you keep it?"

"Because it's beautiful." 

At the time I thought my mother was being sentimental. She tended towards that. But down the years that shirt has stayed with me. I begin to appreciate what my mother enforced, over and over again.

"Look Lacey, look at this colour. It's beautiful." "Feel this muslin, it's a subtle but beautiful fabric."

The white shirt is indeed a thing of beauty. An older beauty, but beauty is beauty. A rose by any other name smells as sweet, and a well-made shirt in any other decade still drapes as perfectly. You want proof? Look at the 50s Dior gowns. 

Mother might not have taught me the angular and I-can-take-on-the-world style I cultivated, but she taught me an appreciation of beauty. She taught me beautiful things deserved to be loved and treasured. I treasure that white shirt now, as she had for over 30 years. 

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All right that was awful, I'm sorry to subject whomever read this to it. I hope I've gotten at least a little of the higher-than-thou air that Vogue seems to carry. Next one's more exciting, promise.