Hey, major congrats! You made it through by FAR the shittest part of the year. Yep, austerity spring is much like the depressing slope from summer to winter but without the acceptable three-nights-a-week partying or thoughtless cash splashing. AKA worst part of the year ever by far.
You survived inhaling and exhaling your stomach in the mirror for two hours a day, epilating your legs with tweezers because secretly it made you feel really calm (bit deep) and buying 1000 things on eBay all of which were hideous. Or, look just add your own version - I'm way too wrapped up in myself right now to empathise.
Anyway! You made it! It's May, you're still alive and, idk, nobody arrested you for crimes of being illegally tragic or anything. Chances are everybody in your office has suddenly realised the entire world hasn't caved in because somebody mis-spelled a tweet or uploaded a default image which exceeded 1000px, which means it's probably time to get drunk on office booze. What a perfect time to remind everybody how slammin you are when you wear things which aren't bobbly, beige or consisting of multiple 'stretch panels'. (Don't hate on stretch panels by the way because they are a life-long friend.)
Here's what you might want to wear when that invitiation hits your inbox:
A SWEATER THAT SAYS YOU CARE JUST ENOUGH
WARNING. This is not an office party and in no way requires equal levels of preparation. Your 3-week old self epilated legs will do just fine, thankyou. When it comes to the outfit, you need something that you could have been wearing all day (but obviously haven't because, come on, BO) but will also look great in the hilarious iPhone pics of you pretending to puke into the communal kettle. I suggest separates, the top half of which could very well be this classy number.
Bella Freud sweater, £250, Net-A-Porter
A PENCIL SKIRT YOU CAN WEAR ALL DAY LONG
And on the bottom? Well, Marks and Spencer's underwear, naturally. And on top of that? A pencil skirt will do the trick nicely, this you actually can wear all day and come 18:01pm just whip off your tights, throw on some over-applied lipstick in the daylight-free ladies and start decanting all wine within reach into your body.
Leather pencil skirt, £125, Topshop
GOOD EYELINER
Which brings us nicely to make-up, the main priority really because it's when you get to do that brilliant/hideously embarrassing thing of walking into the bathroom looking like Rory Culkin and walking out looking like Rory Culkin with Cat Deeley's make-up on. Cool! Most important thing is to AVOID eye shadow, stick with a thick slick of eyeliner instead. Bit sexy. Bit scary. Bit perfect. This one's Chanel but you could use a rogue Sharpie for all the difference it'd make.
Liquid eyeliner, £26, Debenhams
A BETTER LIPSTICK
And then you're going to need a lip that signals "hey look I'm actually a fully-functioning and almost definitely out of your league human being when I'm not begging you to show me how to scan something in colour". This can be tricky, because anything too severe is just going to make people feel awkward. A good way of testing your choice of colour out is applying and then trying to make eye contact with the person next to you in the mirror. Are they suddenly and inexplicably examining the ingredients of the handsoap? Yeah, you're gonna need to rub that off immediately.
Mehr lipstick, £15, MAC
(TBH, can be any colour from MAC. But I personally like "Mehr" because that's a hilarious name for a lipstick)
CIGARETTES
Not to smoke because ew stinky and cough cough yuck. But because your boss is going to get drunk and ask for one – FYI all bosses smoke even if they keep it secret because being a boss is actually immensely shit and stressful. So anyway, once your boss gets drunk enough to sidle up to you and ask for a fag you can pounce, suck-up and give them two. When the CCTV footage of you emptying boxes of Nescafe pods into your desk hits the light of day you're really going to need them to be on your side.
Follow Bertie on Twitter @bertiebrandes
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.