If you can’t be bothered with an LBD, opt for a classic that’s casual but shouts party pizzazz

There is a moment about halfway through Christmas dinner when the cracker hats have slipped askew, shoes been kicked off under the table and belts un-notched, that marks the official end of the season of Making An Effort. A frenzied month of putting on mascara in the work loos and shivering on the way home because you are wearing your fancy coat instead of your warm one is over, up in flames along with the Christmas pudding brandy. Time to breathe out, shift into a lower gear, adjust to the sacred interlude of cheese and telly, half-eaten chocolate reindeers and gap-toothed jigsaws that is Twixmas.

So it can feel a little tricky, a few days later, to go full jazz-hands for New Year’s Eve. But that’s what we are doing.