New Shoes

I love back-to-school time. While the mornings are getting a bit depressing, the sunrises are worth it and I am already excited about cosy evenings involving soup, blankets and candles. Last night was spent debating this year's Hallowe'en costumes. Autumn is underway.

As I have already banged on about a lot, I am now pretty much not buying new things. Depop has (quite dangerously) become my new best friend. My newest-to-me purchase has brought me so much joy I cannot tell you.

I have new school shoes.

I have bought a pair of second-hand DM shoes, identical to the ones I wore for school between the ages of 13 and 16. I love them so much. I feel solid and my clunky footsteps delight me. It was pouring with rain this morning, and for once my feet felt warm and dry. I am enjoying wearing them with a cropped trouser and a jazzy sock. Shoes haven't made me so happy, probably since my last pair of DMs - which I had to beg my mum for and promise I would wear at weekends as well to justify the expense (which I did, for years). Truly happy-making shoes for the back-to-school month.

Most importantly, it's the season when I feel the most productive. I have so many new ideas and just need to get on with it and do them.

Today really is back-to-school day. Tonight I am taking my new shoes and my rucksack and my new notebook to an evening class. This will be the first new thing I have learned in a long time, and the first non-writing-related endeavour I have undertaken... maybe ever? New stuff. It's scary and good. Wish me luck.

The good stuff that I am seeking.

I seem to have spent the past week or so typing and deleting posts. You can guess what they're about. I may or may not post. I'm not sure there is any point.

And so, instead, to the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. Stuff I like; stuff I'm excited about; stuff that brings me joy.

My New Kitchen
I've been redecorating and it is an absolute DREAM. Mexican star tiles, Pepto Bismol candy pink walls, floorboards, many shelves for tiny wineglasses and cookery books... Kitchen discos ahoy (the kitchen glitter ball, of course, remains).

Stella Vine
I am a long-term and avid fan. So, it was a stroke of luck that - semi-drunk on a train the other night - I saw her post on Instagram saying a new limited-edition print was available to buy. Total whim, bought immediately - so much so that I got the very first one. I am in love with it.

Riverdale
Total binge-watch like I haven't done in ages. I watched the lot in one weekend and am now struggling with the idea of having only one ep per week. I need more Veronica in my life.

Glossier
The magic is real. The package arrived like a proper glorious treat, and the lipstick is the perfect naughty shade to make you look like you've been drinking raspberry cocktails and snogging a boy you fancy on a rooftop all night.

I AM NOT ASHAMED
Issue 2 of my old-school 90s-style fanzine, lovingly made with the beaut Harriet Reuter Hapgood, is now available to buy from our online shop! Featuring essays on Riverdale, Emma Forrest, Courtney Love; the in/out list, behind the issue, euphemism cocktails and more!

Radio Days

This is a secret London gem.  Honestly.  A total treasure.

Radio Days is a vintage shop on Lower Marsh in London, just behind Waterloo station.  Lower Marsh is one of my favourite streets in London (definitely top five).  It houses the sort of stuff that is sadly becoming rarer and rarer in Our Nation's Capital.  Proper greasy spoons, a weird spooky shop called Silver Witch, a not-that-sexy sex shop, Chariots sauna...

Radio Days sells mostly clothes, but also many accessories, vintage magazines, records, books, household knick-knacks.  The decor and atmosphere are like something from an extremely chic but slightly dodgy black and white movie.  The clothes are from the 1920s up to the 70s/80s, with perfect 1940s dresses and beautiful vintage lingerie a speciality - all pristine and so, so glamorous.  It is, basically, heaven.

The clothes are original and properly special in a way that is becoming unusual even in vintage shops.  There is wonderful music played on vinyl.  The owner, Lee, is dapper and chatty and a total delight, and often being visited by local characters that make it worth hanging around and eavesdropping.

I just bought my winter coat there - 60s, modish, wool, perfect fit, total bargain and Lee even gave me a discount without me asking.

So...  unfortunately the news is that they are closing down.  Another London gem gone.  This makes me so sad, but the temporary good news is that they are going to be open for the next three months only.  They want to sell everything off before then, so the place is currently packed to the rafters with truly amazing treasures, and there are mega bargains to be found.  Consider this a friendly public service announcement in the spirit of an old-fashioned London...

http://www.radiodaysvintage.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/Radio-Days-179487992108250/?fref=ts

http://www.thevintageguidetolondon.com/worth-crossing-the-river-for-radio-days/

Lovely Liv

I've loved her since 'Empire Records' (haven't we all?) but lately I find myself slightly obsessed anew with Liv Tyler.

She's so insanely beautiful and I found this great article about her 'beauty secrets'.  Obviously I have copied all of them and am keeping my fingers crossed that soon I will wake up and actually be her.  I'll keep you posted on that.

Incidentally, Into The Gloss turns out to be a really great beauty site..  I find myself spending a lot of time there.  You're welcome/sorry (it might end up taking up quite a bit of time and costing you money in new beauty products).

http://intothegloss.com/2013/05/liv-tyler/

Top Lips

A very frivolous observation that might not be remotely interesting to any of you.

But...

Newsflash: Topshop make-up is really good.

Really, really good, you guys!

I am currently wearing their lipsticks pretty much constantly.  Yep, I am having a temporary break from tasteful Chanel in favour of garish Topshop - sometimes a bright lipstick seems like a necessity, to me at least.

I am a big fan of 'Infrared', which is actually more like a bright orange.  I have also recently acquired a good dark/brick red called 'Hazard'.  I like that the names sound a bit dangerous.

A cream blusher called 'Head Over Heels' (less dangerous) is currently perking up my sad winter face, which generally turns a fetching yellow tone during these grim, cold months.  But it's the lipsticks that are really exciting me.

They are a perfect consistency - so much so that you can practically put them on without a mirror, even the strong colours.  Also importantly, they come in a hardy little metal tube that can withstand a lot of jumbling around at the bottom of the hell that is my handbag.

Also, duh, they are cheaper than Chanel.  Or Mac.

Public service announcement: over.

RIP Baxter

When my mum asked me what I wanted for Christmas a while ago, my answer was easy.  A pair of Baxters in a new colour - any colour.

Baxters are Topshop's 'relaxed' skinny jean and they fit me perfectly.  I currently have them in classic denim, bright blue and olive green.  While I am not always a fan of Topshop, their jeans are lovely and I can't see the point in buying anything else - comfy, good fit, not too expensive.  Many of my friends are devotees to the 'Leigh' style - a shade skinnier than Baxter - and have tried to convert me.  But I have too chunky a leg for Leigh, more's the pity.  I have a pair of the high-waisted 'Kristen' and the super high-waisted 'Joni', both of which I love when the occasion is right - but for everyday, it's always Baxter.  I wear them for work, for Saturdays running around town - all that kind of stuff.

A while ago I decided maybe I should have a go with a pair of 'proper' grown up jeans.  I tried on Acne, Sevens, MIH.  None of them fit me quite perfectly, and I baulked at the idea of spending that much money on jeans, only to have to have them altered.  I ended up buying two pairs of Baxters instead.

So, it was with a heavy heart that my mum reported back that the Baxter has been discontinued.  Why?  Oh, why?  We are currently trying to stockpile every pair that is left, but supplies seem to be dwindling.

Please, Topshop - bring back Baxter!

Some Current Faves

• My new Isabel Marant haul - white jeans, a vest and a sweatshirt.  Swag.
• Elizabeth Taylor - I'm more obsessed than ever (I just read 'Furious Love', which is hyperbolic and silly but worth a fun read) and have ordered her hilarious diet book 'Elizabeth Takes Off' from the depths of out-of-print online booksellers.
• Red wine, because it's winter.
• Making kale chips and imagining I'm Gwyneth.  You may all know by now that, like so many of the proletariat, I love imagining I'm Gwyneth.
• Writing, writing and more writing - I really do love it so!

Candidly Nicole

I don't mind saying I'm slightly obsessed with her.  She is hilarious and I would quite like her to be my best friend.

Most importantly, should I copy her hair cut?

Mind the Thigh Gap

I adore Hadley Freeman.  I think she is one of our cleverest, funniest and most sensible writers.

In a recent article she wrote about the much-discussed 'thigh gap', her closing paragraph read to me like the perfect call to arms.  It is what I want to remind myself of when the images and pressures occasionally feel too much.

This is what I will be doing.

But what we – the adults who don't obsess over thigh flesh – can do is to keep reinforcing the message to young people that to be strong and healthy is a good thing and to be frail and sickly is dangerous, and that anyone who feels differently is not to be hated but to be pitied. And, most of all, we need to live by our words and set the example accordingly. Because, ultimately, a life spent measuring your thighs is a life wasted.

The full article is worth a read and can be found here.

Something's Coming Over

Everyone thinks I'm bonkers but this is my favourite-ever Madonna song and I still want to look exactly like her in this video.

We Need To Talk About Jessa

OK, it’s been a while since Girls hit.  I’m not going to add to the looming Jenga-tower of words about Lena Dunham, much as I love her – and I do.  I really do.

No.  It’s been long enough now that I have been able to watch my Girls DVDs on a loop until my eyes bleed the tears of an over-privileged white girl who identifies far too much with these over-privileged white characters.

I now have but one thing to say.  We need to talk about Jessa.

My obsession with her has been building to epic proportions and it is not good for me or my life.

Jessa always looks amazing, when she is wearing a bathrobe in the street and red lipstick, or a multitude of feathers.  She comes out with catchphrases like ‘all adventurous women do!’.  She encourages her friends to do stupid things ‘for the story’.  She does stupid things all the time.  She gets married to dudes she neither knows nor likes!

It doesn’t matter that I have known girls like Jessa in real life and they are a bad influence on me – I never realised until it was too late that I was actually the only one who didn’t revise for my exams; everyone else just said they weren’t going to.  (There’s a metaphor for life in there, in case you missed it.)  Plus, those Jessa friends can get kind of annoying after a while.  It doesn’t matter that the actress who plays her, Jemima Kirke, is actually married with two children and a lovely house.

The more I watch, the more I start thinking it’s a good idea to do things ‘for the story’.  The more I start wearing my bathrobe outside the house.

‘What would Jessa do?’ I ask myself, whilst pondering hand tattoos.

It’s even more insidious than all those times I used to ask myself ‘what would Courtney Love do?’.  I don’t understand why I can’t be drawn to the good role models.  But then again: ‘what would Gwyneth Paltrow do?’.  Nothing fun.

I was disappointed in myself when I read Lena Dunham saying on Twitter that nobody’s really a Jessa.  According to her creator, we all like to think we are, but we’re not – ‘that is the sick power of the Jessa’.

It can’t be true.  I am totally a Jessa.*

* Aren’t I?  Is this like when suburban dullards all over the land started saying they were ‘a Carrie’?  No.  Please tell me it’s not.

C is for Happiness

I put lipstick on in the same way as one of my great-grandmothers.  I know this to be true because we wear lipsticks down in the same way – to a long, flat point with a groove on either side.  The first time my mum noticed this, she looked as though she’d seen a ghost.  I’ve never seen it anywhere else.

Sometimes beauty isn’t about looks.  My favourite everyday lipstick is a Chanel one called ‘Egerie’.  You can hardly even see it’s there, which is actually good because you can put it on in the back of a cab, or on a moving train, without making a mess.  It doesn’t matter what you can see, because the point is that it makes me feel really Chanel.

Lessons in Liz

Over the past week, I have watched the BBC4 drama 'Burton and Taylor' twice so far.  I have cried uncontrollably at the final scene on both occasions.  I plan to watch it again, maybe tonight.

I adore Helena Bonham-Carter and was intrigued to see her glammed up and admitting her classic beauty for once.  Dominic West is properly good in everything, obviously.  However, I was not an expert on Liz and Dick.  I'm still not, but now I'm learning.

In my cyclical obsessions with film stars and retro glamour pusses, Liz never really featured - through my own ignorance rather than preference.  I had my Bettie Page phase, and my Louise Brooks phase; I tried and failed to channel Audrey and Marilyn; I could cry over a photograph of Natalie Wood all day long.  Weirdly, I had never really explored the treasures of Taylor.  I read up on her a little after she died, and my interest was, naturally, caught.

Now, late in the day, I am mildly obsessed.  Since watching this dramatisation, I have been hungry for the real thing.  I have been reading everything I can get my hands on, and Google-imaging for hours on end.

After I switched off the BBC I-player, I went out that night in a low-cut halterneck dress I hadn't worn for years, black and splashed with giant dark pink roses, lipstick to match, hair up.

As always, my favourite writer Emma Forrest is ten steps ahead of me and puts it better than I can.  Here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4727434/Lessons-in-Liz.html

Skinny is a sensitive issue.

I recently received the most interesting reader review of my book so far.  (As you may know, I wrote a YA thriller set in a girls’ school, called Gemini Rising…)

This review was thoughtful, insightful and beautifully written; it pointed out a lot of correct influences that nobody else seems to have picked up on so far, praised many aspects of the book and made some interesting criticisms that I totally took on board.  (You can see the full review on Good Reads – as the reviewer points out, it does contain spoilers so is best read only after you have read the book itself.)

However, there was one point that really got me thinking. It was this:

‘I am tired of main characters who are supposed to be plain or unattractive, and the main selling point of this is that they have brown hair and are TOO skinny. Look... I hate to say it, but to teen girls who take the western beauty standard extremely seriously as a way of validating their identity, there is not such a thing as too skinny. Not having huge tits is a minor flaw at best. Being tall and very slender as opposed to having a fuller, curvier figure with bigger tits being perceived as something that makes you seen as unattractive and ugly is not something I or any other woman I know can relate to. Maybe you can! … Making your main character "too skinny" as a way to make her physically flawed is disingenuous. You, the author, are perfectly aware that skinniness is considered attractive to us.’

Harsh but fair?  Good point well made?

I can only speak for myself, and I do think it’s an interesting and valid point, but I disagree.  However, this may come from a mixture of personal experience and now being 32 years old.

First of all, actually, I don’t see my main character as being particularly good-looking – she’s certainly not a Bambi-like ‘oh-my-god-she-looks-like-a-model-but-she-just-doesn’t-realise-it’ type.  Her best friend is overweight, which is not a big part of the story but is alluded to several times throughout, and she has way more confidence in herself and her appearance.  (And she’s definitely not just the fat/funny best friend.)

My main character isn’t exactly the same as me, but I suppose there were elements of that old saying ‘write what you know’.  When I was in my teens, I was skinny.  Personally, I don’t think it much matters – most girls, for a bit, at that age, are either a bit too skinny or a bit too chubby, for no good reason, and then it all evens out.  However, I didn’t love being as skinny as I was and it seemed very depressing to me at the time – I already ate like a small horse so there was nothing that I could do about it.  I should point out that I wasn’t some kind of teen model, gazelle-like skinny: I was small and shrimpy, with a hair situation that led to girls in my class temporarily nicknaming me ‘Greaseball’.  My greasy hair bothered me as much as my skinniness did; maybe girls who had frizzy hair had a worse time than I did, but I guess I’ll never know.

I regularly got accused of having an eating disorder (which I didn’t but, weirdly, I believe this contributed to some eating issues I did develop later on).  A boy dumped me because I didn’t want to sleep with him, and he told everyone that ‘it would have been like feeling up a 10-year-old boy, anyway’.  I once bought a ‘one-size-fits-all’ belly chain thing from Miss Selfridge (it was the 90s, OK?!), and it slithered down over my hips into a puddle on the floor – its design meant it was impossible to adjust, so that was £2.99 I would never get back plus I was clearly abnormal, so I cried.  Other girls openly sneered at my equally skinny friend and me about our figures – then again, we were pretty annoying and fond of the Annie soundtrack, and physical insults are simply the easiest target, so this would probably have been the same with different adjectives had we both been chubby.  Fortunately for us, ‘loser’ is and always has been a universal term.

Pretty tragic, maybe, but the main thing I wanted at that age was to be attractive to boys.  As far as I could tell, teenage boys were interested in one thing: tits.  I’m sorry but it’s true – skinny schoolgirls might be novel to old pervs, but breasts are novel to teenage boys and they pretty much unanimously love them.  The girls in my class who were popular with boys all seemed to be slightly chubby, because that meant they had tits.  End of.  (On a related side note, is it coincidence that my first boyfriend grew up to be a practising homosexual?  We bonded over our love of Madonna and, um, Fox Mulder; I had no idea.)

In those long-ago days of the late-90s, there was no Alexa Chung looking willowy and beautiful all over the place.  There was also no size 4 or 6 on the high street, so I was stuck in Tammy Girl long after most of my peers moved on to Topshop.  I don’t remember us particularly aspiring to look like Kate Moss back then.  The boys all seemed to be obsessed with some combination of the following: Britney Spears, All Saints, Lara Croft, Holly Valance, Felicity Shagwell out of Austin Powers, Denise van Outen in her Big Breakfast days and all those other busty, shouty women who looked like her…  The girls at school all agreed: the ideal figure meant being a size 10 with a 34C bra.  We were very specific.  Unfortunately my experiment of pinning two Wonderbras together was not a great success.  Fortunately, in the end, Gwen Stefani came along and taught me to play to my strengths.

I’m sure it was tricky for fat girls, too.  Maybe trickier.  It was tricky for most of us, I know that.  Surely the point is that lots of us feel shit about ourselves for some reason at that age.  Probably those girls I envied had more confidence than tits, and that’s what made them so in-demand.  The thing that I find baffling in retrospect, that just goes to show how we will use anything to beat ourselves up at that age, is that between me and the girls considered ‘fat’ in my class, there were probably only two or three dress sizes in it.  The girls bang smack in the middle seemed to come off best, but maybe they would disagree as well.

So maybe I’m biased; maybe I’m just a bit out of date.  I’m now an adult and a relatively small but normal size, practically curvaceous by comparison to my former teen gawk, and I don’t give such things a massive amount of thought.  Most of the things that worried me greatly at that age don’t matter any more, which is as it should be.  Actually, if I really wanted to harp on about this, I could tell you honestly that, earlier this year, after a particularly traumatic time during which I lost about 10 pounds from my already not-fat frame, I made a concerted effort to put them back on because I didn’t want my body to be seen as a cry for help.  There is such a thing as ‘too skinny’, or maybe it’s just ‘the wrong skinny’.  Whether there is such a thing as ‘too rich’, unfortunately, I wouldn’t know.

Yeah, OK, if I really wanted to now I could probably be fatter and consequently have bigger boobs.  Now that those pesky teenage hormones have died down, I thankfully get more of a say in what size I am.  I’ll admit that I like being skinny(ish) now a lot more than I did back then.  Maybe the times have just changed, but I think it’s more that I have (and hopefully most people have if you compare them at 16 and 32).  There’s Alexa Chung now, but there are also a whole load of other people for you to choose from.  I’m glad that Gwen Stefani’s still around, peddling the perfect abs I still aspire to.  If I was 16 now, I can pretty much guarantee that I would be sitting around feeling jealous of Daisy Lowe – turns out I wasn’t just skinny but really, tediously whiney.  What about you?

I’m really not trying to start an argument in the nasty sense, or to divide people based on their body shape – or, worst of all, to be hitting back at a critical comment for the arbitrary sake of it.  I am genuinely interested and I think this is a fascinating topic.  I would love to know how you all feel about it, particularly if you had the opposite experience to me.  Please do let me know.

Jilly Fashion

Yes, my Jilly obsession returns.  It never went away.

If you haven’t read any/much Jilly Cooper, there are many good reasons to do so.  The romance, intrigue and hilarious one-liners.  But if that doesn’t do it for you, then they’re worth reading just for the fashion – particularly the old 70s stuff.

I have coveted many a Jilly outfit.  Here are my top 10.

1.         Octavia in gold

‘Now you see me, now you don’t!’ Octavia quipped to the shocked Home Counties party, dancing for a slavering audience.  Her completely see-through gold chainmail tunic had only a couple of sequined discs to cover her nipples, perilously.

2.         Prudence underdressed

Prudence is my favourite.  She’s a fan of theme dressing, just like me.  Her green culotte dress, which was by all accounts very skimpy and had enormous cut-outs at the waist, was ‘a showstopper’.  Maggie declared it heavenly, but then wondered how one would be able to go to the loo.

3.         Imogen’s awful beach outfit

Oh, poor Imogen the vicar’s daughter.  She’s in the south of France with a bunch of bitchy supermodels, and her holiday outfits all came from the church jumble sale – but surely she could have done better than that awful old kaftan and moth-eaten bathing dress?  Clueless Imogen tried to salvage things in the glamour stakes by adding tights and high-heeled sandals.  On the beach.  Luckily, Matt was waiting in the wings to whisk her off to St Trop and start playing Pygmalion.

4.         Daisy at Rupert and Taggie’s wedding

‘Bit of a bohemian,’ whispered Sukey Benedict behind her back – inspired by Daisy’s black velvet knickerbockers and black blazer printed with gigantic pink roses.  Little did she know her husband had chosen and bought the outfit for Daisy.

5.         Cameron ‘as a bloke’

Cameron Cook was such an awful, hateful bitch.  But some of her outfits sounded amazing.  Slutty, but amazing.  They seemed to involve a lot of leather and suede, and dresses that laced up the sides to show she wasn’t wearing any pants.  My favourite was when she turned up at Valerie Jones’s cringey dinner party in a tuxedo.

6.         Duckling grows up

So, ‘Duckling’ was always in love with her older sister’s boyfriend and so she decides to wow him when she sees him again by dressing up as a ‘disturbing Greek youth’ – she wears an outfit that sounds, frankly, like the most amazing thing of all time: a silver body stocking, silver high heels, glittery body paint and her hair slicked back in ‘rainbow blonde wings’.  Awesome.  And kind of a good thing that, really, he loved her for her sweet personality.

7.         Flora’s sand-coloured shorts suit

Jilly’s keen on a sand-coloured shorts suit – Taggie also wore one to the polo once, with red lipstick and matching pashmina.  This one came from Jigsaw and was a birthday present from her mum Georgie.  I think Flora sounds gorgeous, with her dark red bob and foxy face, and this actually sounds like an outfit I would quite like to wear.

8.         Hermione’s Chanel suits

Hermione Harefield – opera singer, mistress of the fiendish Ranaldini – is hell on high heels.  She never engages her small brain before she speaks and is a crashing snob.  However, she has a lovely line in Chanel suits, which I covet madly.  Flora even immortalised them in her infamous carol concert ode to Paradise.

9.         Bibi in coral

I love a good makeover story.  For Bibi’s date with the divine Angel, Chessie (apparently in a rare moment of charity) lent Bibi her maid, who used to be a beautician.  Obviously underneath all her usual unflattering work clothes, Bibi has the body of a racehorse and finally shows it off.

10.       Perdita as Lady Godiva

Because that was the only way she could compete with all those rich bitches.

I’m sure there are loads of classics I’ve forgotten.  Anyone?

Current Favourite Things

Just for fun, here are the things currently making my life a bit more awesome.

My Amazing New Michael Kors Watch

Sorry if this sounds braggy, but I just love it so much!  I copied my awesome friend Lou, who already had one (making us watch buddies, yay!) and it fulfills all my most important criteria: massive, shiny…  Actually, that’s kind of it.  My two criteria.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

I expect lots of you hate this, right?  Yes, you – I can see your judging eyes.  I love it so much.  I expected to feel sneery about it, but it turns out that it makes me feel nothing but pure joy.  I wish the whole family were my best frie-ends (snap).  And that I had a pet pig called Glitzy.

Zoe Karssen

My bat T-shirt and grumpy kittens sweatshirt bring me unimagined joy.  I’m that shallow.

Old Clothes

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about items of clothing that I used to own and are long lost.  And an inordinate amount of money buying back similar items.

That’s not to say I’m fickle with throwing away clothes – in fact, the opposite.  I still have a bottle-green skinny-rib top that is a Marks and Spencers age 11–12 and I have worn regularly since that age (well done on your excellent quality, M&S).  I would estimate that around 20% of my wardrobe is made up of cast-offs from my mum and nan, along with a few from my sister and various friends.  My nan’s silk blouses and Jaeger jumpers from the 70s basically form the top half of my work wardrobe.

However, an ode to the pieces I lost and now miss:

• A long-sleeved T-shirt from Miss Selfridge circa 1996, navy with orange arms.  I would wear it with enormous denim flares and Adidas trainers, my hair in a topknot.  I would feel awesome, convinced I looked straight out of the Smashing Pumpkins video for 1979.  It no longer exists, as I wore it until it fell apart – the wrist seams frayed, the holes under the armpits growing bigger until it just got silly.
•  A perfect black polo neck, that I bought in San Francisco in 1998.  It really was the dream black polo neck – and it was from San Francisco, how perfect!  So of course I think of it often. I accidentally spattered some bleach down the front of it, when I was dyeing my hair once, and it came up in a weird little archipelago of orange stains.  Ever resourceful, I tried to colour these in with a permanent black marker, but the blacks didn’t match up and then it looked like grease stains.  I was forced to throw the perfect black polo neck away, and I have never found another to match it since.
• A black velvet strappy mini-dress – it was my mum’s in the 80s and, in the late 90s, I used to wear it over jeans.  It was awesome – stretchy and 80s and flattering.  I would love to wear it to a party now.  I can’t remember what happened to it; given the timing, I bet I lent it to a friend and never got it back.  Sorry, Mum.