Lessons from a Friday Night at Tesco

1. If you absolutely must wear leather-look leggings (and I don't condone this at all, but some of you out there seem to find them irrisistable), for the love of God, wear a thong. Or, since you're pretty much baring it all anyway, don't wear underpants at all. But what you mustn't, mustn't do, is wear panties that dig into the blubber on your bum, because everyone else can see it.
   
2. It's unfortunate, but painting your lips a paler colour than the rest of your face doesn't look pretty, or even edgy and cool; it just makes you look like a corpse.
3. There's only one sort of man who will wear a canary-yellow jumper over a collared shirt (with baggy cords, no less, and patent-leather shoes): the man who wants to be seen as more successful than he actually is. The canary colour is his way of being weekend-y and "playful"--his concession to fun whilst still trying to prove that he's too good at his job to ever really go off-duty. He's probably going to play golf tomorrow. In the same jumper. Avoid him.
4. If you're the manager of the store, don't hold an impromptu gathering of staff in front of the doors while students are queueing all the way to the back of the store trying to buy as much Jacob's Creek as they can before closing time. It makes it hard to leave. Or enter. And it kind of makes it look like you don't really care about your customers. Just saying.
   

In Praise of Holey Jumpers (Or, The Other Holy War*)

Oh, apparently, there are rules about what I’m allowed to be wearing in my own house—unwritten, unenforceable rules. So secret I didn’t know about them until I opened up the Times today at work to discover that, despite the Middle East going to hell in a handbasket and the upcoming inauguration of a certain American president-elect, both of which had made it to the front page of the paper, the centerfold featured a dozen full-colour photographs of a pouty blonde wearing various configurations of jumper-tights-wool socks. The headline was something quasi-clever, like, “The (Staying) In Thing” and the first line of the (article? blurb?) read: (and I paraphrase) “Hibernating is understandable. Doing it old holey jumpers is NOT.”

I’m a big fan of the old holey jumper. I have an entire collection of them, mostly inherited from The Man, who rips tears in the armpits of his jumpers at a rate of about two per week, it seems: oversize, thick, unraveling-at-the-hems. Basically old duvets with armholes. And as they are a staple of my household wardrobe, I was shocked to discover that it’s not understandable that I might wear them whilst, say, washing the dishes, or watching a film on the couch, or writing in the study (which tends to be very, very cold).

I’ve come to the conclusion, after a fairly in-depth study of fashion magazines (well, after reading a lot of them in the bath, anyway) that fashion is utterly arbitrary. Forget what Meryl Streep says in The Devil Wears Prada: cerulean blue was only ever in vogue because, well, it just was—and only fell out of vogue because it did. If I had the right job, I could make fashion decisions for the world, too: give me a column in the front of any glossy Saturday magazine and see if I don’t get everyone to start dressing like me.

But despite all that, there’s a certain fashion magazine tone of voice: if you’re a girl, you probably know the one I mean. It’s authoritative. It’s almost propagandistic, it’s so convincing. It doesn’t once occur to you to question the assertion that peep-toe ankle-boots are in (PEEP-toe ankle-BOOTS, the rational side of your mind screams, but you shut it up at the first glimpse of Kate Moss modeling the trend). What do we humble readers know anyway?

So not only was I surprised to find that I was breaking standard lounging-around-the-house fashion etiquette, but I also quickly came to the conclusion that, in fact, I’ve become unduly sloppy in my hibernation-dressing lately, and, really, there isn’t an excuse for wearing hand-me-down-jumpers with gaping holes in exciting places. It’s probably not what Kate Moss would do, and it’s certainly not what the pouty blonde in The Times does.

But here I am at home, and the only thing I want to be wearing is—what else—a holey jumper. Preferably with holey tights (yes, I do own several pairs) and mismatched socks. And that authoritative fashion voice cannot permeate this inclination! She’s not allowed in my house; at least, she’s not allowed near my old jumpers.

But the best response, the most astute, I think, comes from The Man, who, upon hearing the headline, had only one thing to say:

“Oh, fuck off!”

And then he turned on his heel in a jumper which is beginning to show a little wear in the armpits.

*despite my penchant for bad puns, The Man actually came up with this one...

I Am Not A Skinny-Jean Girl

I discovered this yesterday, when, about twelve years after the fad hit the streets, I finally, finally, finally broke down and bought a pair. I took them home, put them on, and was surveying myself proudly in front of the mirror when I began to notice that, actually, I wasn't sure I liked what I saw. I turned round and round, craning to see how they hugged my bum, stood model-like and tried to pretend that I looked like Kate Moss. Then my love, bless him, came out into the hallway. "Nice skinny jeans," he said, not sarcastic but mildly surprised. "My brothers," he then added, "would be very jealous."

I considered this. I decided that perhaps, after all, I didn't particularly hope to inspire jealousy in the minds of a pair of lovely, infinitely stylish 16 year old boys. If I kept the pants, I would be lying to myself every time I put them on.

So I took them back to the store, where they can now be found hanging on a rack with lots of other fashionable trousers, waiting for a bolder girl than I to take them home, and exchanged them for a very nice pair of good-old-fashioned-bootcut-jeans. When I came home this time, legs encased in dark denim, I was greeted with great bemusement. "I just decided they're more me," I said, to justify myself and my shopping-bulimia moment. Thankfully, he agreed. "You look," he added, "very nice."

So it's back to jeans with flares for me. My foray into the world of tapered trousers was disastrous, a bit. But also very illuminating.

(am writing this in the QI bookshop, as an aside. facing the shelves with "eaten", "drunk", and "misfits", AKA elegant bottles of red wine. the world is as it should be, and despite the fact that I may or may not be coming down with a mild but irritating cold, I am very, very, very happy.)