Yes. This is fashionable. A skirt and a jumper is officially A Look. I love days like today, when I get to be the bearer of glad tidings, instead of trying to flog trends you and I both know do no one any favours, like some dirty pusher of peplums and platforms.

There is so much to love about wearing a skirt and a jumper. It is fashion at its most obliging. Power dressing tends to be strict in the discipline it imposes on you. Shirt collars force your chin up, tailoring pins your shoulders back. Either that, or it relies on you becoming your very own fashion police: a crisp, pale cotton shirtdress may look easy to wear but its effect relies on constant vigilance about creases or smudges. As the ancient Chinese proverb goes, life is too short for dresses you can't eat noodles in.

The skirt-jumper combo is a bona fide catwalk look. Jil Sander's catwalk had Picasso motif sweaters with white cotton skirts; Jonathan Saunders put fancy absinthe-green silk skirts with simple crew-neck knits. The trouble is, normal people are still wearing it, so it is crucial to convey that you are wearing skirt-jumper as Fashion rather than simply as Clothes. You wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea.

You might think the way to make the look fly would be to go for a smart, sexy skirt and a smart, flattering jumper. No, no, no. Big mistake. Stay classy out there, people. You can only play the flattering/sexy card once. It's either a jumper with a wink or a skirt with a wiggle, but not both. So you can wear a bit of a sexpot jumper with, say, a press-pleated knee-length skirt. Or you can wear a sequin pencil skirt with a geek-chic woolly crew-neck. By wearing a skirt and a jumper, you are giving up the authority you get from tailored wool, or the sleekness you get from a silk dress. To compensate, use the informality of this look to your advantage. Use an unexpected colour combination, or mix metallic with angora, lace with a waffle knit.

This is probably spring's most blissfully easy trend. So you won't mind, I'm sure, if I add just one tiny request. Heels. Always. Sorry. There's always a catch, isn't there?.

• Jess wears jumper £66, by American Apparel. Skirt £308, by Vince, from Matches. Heels £485, by Gucci.

Photograph: David Newby. Hair and make-up: Celia Burton at Mandy Coakley.