What to wear on New Year's Eve, for every kind of night

New Year's Eve is the only night of the year when the dress code depends entirely on the plan, and the plan usually changes twice in the last week. The outfit that works is the one that can survive a change of plan.

There are really five kinds of New Year's Eve, and each has a fairly narrow set of right answers.

The five kinds of night

• A house party: dressed up, but you will be on someone's kitchen floor by one in the morning. Sparkle on top, sensible below.
• A restaurant: whatever you would wear to a good restaurant, plus one thing that says it is not an ordinary Tuesday.
• A bar or a club: the most dressed up of the ordinary nights, and the one where the coat and the shoes matter most, because you will queue and you will walk.
• Black tie: the invitation says so, and it means exactly what it says. A dinner jacket, a long or dressy midi dress. No interpretation.
• At home with a few people: nicer than pyjamas, softer than a party. A good knit, a silk top, a dress you can sit on the floor in.

Put the sparkle in one place

This is the night for sequins, metallics, velvet and satin, and the mistake is wearing all four. One piece carries the evening: a sequin top with black trousers, a velvet blazer over a plain shirt, a metallic skirt with a black knit, satin trousers with a simple top. The rest of the outfit stays dark and quiet so the one piece reads as a decision.

For men

A dark suit with the tie off and a dark shirt is right for a restaurant, a bar and most house parties, and it is in most wardrobes already. A velvet or textured blazer over black trousers is the version with a bit more occasion in it. For a house party, black jeans, a dark shirt and boots with a good jacket are enough. Black tie means black tie: dinner jacket, bow tie, proper shoes.

The upgrade that costs nothing is the shoes. Polished leather instead of trainers turns black jeans and a shirt into an outfit.

For women

A dress with some shine or texture is the classic answer, and it works at every kind of night except the sofa. Satin slip dress with a blazer over it for a restaurant. Sequins or metallic for a bar or a party. A long dress or a dressy midi for black tie. If you would rather wear trousers, wide-leg satin or velvet trousers with a fitted top sit at the same level and are far easier to dance in, sit in and get into a taxi in.

Shoes decide the night. Whatever you choose, you will stand in it for hours, possibly outside at midnight. A block heel or a good flat boot is the pair people are grateful for by half past twelve.

The midnight problem

At some point near midnight everyone goes outside: for fireworks, for the countdown, for the taxi, for air. It is the coldest hour of the coldest night of the year. A coat you like the look of matters more on New Year's Eve than at any other party, because it will be in the photographs, and a scarf you can pocket is worth more than a fourth layer of sparkle.

What not to wear

• Every shiny thing you own at once. One piece carries the night.
• Shoes you have not walked in for a full evening. Not this night.
• A thin jacket on the assumption that you will be inside. Midnight is outside.
• Anything that needs adjusting: strapless, very short, a jacket that only sits right buttoned.
• Costume-level novelty: light-up glasses and the year in numbers on your head are for the last two minutes, not the outfit.

When the plan changes on the 30th

It will. The restaurant becomes a house party; the house party becomes a bar. The outfit that copes is a dark base with one removable statement piece: black trousers or a black dress, good shoes, a coat, and then the sequin top or the velvet blazer that can come on or off depending on where the night ends up. That combination is right at four of the five kinds of night, and it is nearly always already in the wardrobe.

Build it from what you own

The pieces are there: the black trousers, the one shiny top, the good shoes, the coat. What is missing on the 31st is the ability to see them all at once. Rate My Fit Now photographs your clothes into a wardrobe you can look at in one place, and when you type "new year's eve party" or "new year's eve dinner" it returns a complete outfit from your own pieces, one per category, with a reason for each. Then it films five seconds of you in it, which settles the sequins-or-velvet argument before anything leaves the hanger.

The short version

• Dress for the plan, and for the plan changing.
• One sparkly piece; everything else black.
• Shoes you can stand in until one in the morning.
• A coat you like, because midnight is outside.
• Black tie means exactly that.