Style Inspo: J. B. Fletcher

I was recently picking an outfit to wear with a funky Michigan Rag Co. windbreaker I thrifted in recent months, and it struck me that the result had a distinct Cabot Cove flavour to it. I enjoyed it tremendously, which is to say that I felt strong “comfortable in my own skin” feelings whilst wearing it. That’s always the signal that I got the outfit right — the clothes make me feel good inside myself, as though they were simply an extension of my body. Anyway, this sent me down a rabbit hole of internet sleuthing, chasing the (unlikely?) style icon that is Jessica B. Fletcher.

I remember watching Murder She Wrote in my late teens; I enjoyed it, unironically, alongside more typical teenage fare like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Deep down, I think I have always aspired to be like Jessica, but the older I get, the more those aspirations surface. Unfortunately, I have not been able to stream the show in recent years, but I have collected many of the novels and they’ve been feeding my thirst for all things JB Fletcher. As far as I’m concerned, she might just be living my best life: creative work, lovely house in a bucolic town, supportive friends, busy (but not too busy) social life, traveling … oh, and the occasional cozy murder to solve.

I definitely did not view Jessica as a style icon in my teens, but as a 40-something year old knee-deep in 90s nostalgia? That’s another matter. As I dug through various archives (the @murder_she_wore IG account is a goldmine), I kept coming across outfits that made me go “Tweak that and I’d wear it!” If I had to describe her style (on the show), it would be ‘laidback WASPy’ — preppy but not twee, ladylike but not fussy, and above all, sensible. Now, on first blush, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap between this kind of description and my personal aesthetic, but there is a certain vibe in all of this that speaks to my Historian avatar. In the last few years, I’ve described that avatar as the history-professor-who-studies-alchemy-and-might-secretly-be-a-witch (a kind of luxe Dark Academia, not the Hot Topic variety), and it’s a description that still speaks to me — in other words, it helps me to visualize outfits that make me feel like myself. But the casual/weekender side of the Historian … maybe it has something to learn from JB Fletcher.

Here are a few Jessica outfits I’ve saved for inspiration:

And here is that windbreaker outfit that made me feel like I could fit into Cabot Cove’s weekend scene:

For me, the key to interpretation (especially of inspiration that is “historical” in nature, aka vintage to a greater or lesser extent) is to avoid being too literal. I am going to take some of the silhouettes or outfit combinations and use contemporary pieces to recreate the vibe, not the exact look. Or, if I am going to use vintage pieces, I will update the silhouette to something that feels current. The goal is to avoid looking like I am wearing a costume, as that makes me feel self-conscious.

One of my ongoing experiments is to find ways to incorporate scarves and brooches (two Jessica favourites) into outfits in ways that don’t feel like slavish copying. For example, Jessica wears a lot of silky scarves with button down blouses, which isn’t something that translates for my personal aesthetic. But the idea — wearing a scarf as an accessory with or instead of a necklace — intrigues me, and I want to see if there are ways to do it that feel authentic to me. What that means, in practical terms, is that when I am putting together outfits I will ask myself, “would a scarf work here somehow?” Most of the time, the answer will be “no”, but every now and then, something might click. That’s how inspiration works for me — it’s a little nugget tucked away at the back of my mind, which some day might come in handy.

Anyway, here is a scarf outfit that did check all the boxes for me:

It was extra special as the scarf is a Hermes one that used to belong to my mom. As a fellow Murder She Wrote fan, I like to think that she would have appreciated this look.