Fashion and beauty is one of (if not the) most blogged about subjects so I thought I would share my views on fashion as a first step into the waters of this area of blogging.
In my family we all have very different but very strong views on fashion. I think this is good, if everyone was the same it wouldn’t be fashion. In my opinion fashion is a way of telling everyone who you are. My brother does it by wearing polo neck t-shirts and shorts all year round in solid colours, not too bright. My sister does it by somehow pulling off a flared polkadot mini skirt, a checked shirt and a top with glittery embellishments. Neither of them would be seen dead it the other persons clothes and my brother would deny any interest in fashion whatsoever but if you care about what you are wearing then surely that’s caring about fashion?
I don’t tend to pay any attention to what is ‘in fashion’. I am often aware of it, I think most people would notice if half their town suddenly started wandering around in giant baby grows, but I don’t follow it. I’m trying to think of the last time I had something that was ‘in fashion’. I did own a pair of fake pink Crocs when I was about nine. We had a holiday house on the Suffolk coast and there was a worry at the time about the amount of weever fish in the area so everyone was wearing them to go swimming in. I was still at the stage then where I wanted to fit in so I was thrilled until the strap broke. Not to be defeated I kept on wearing them, without the straps, but what active nine year old can manage to keep them on her feet whilst running wild on a summer holiday? They gave me massive blisters as well. Thinking about it, this might have been what put me off trends.
I have gone through many different fashion stages in my life. I went though the ‘everything I own is pink’ stage and then the ‘everything I own is blue’ stage. I went through the stage of refusing to wear anything above my knees and the ‘I don’t care how short on me these jeans are I love them and I’m never going to get rid of them’ stage several times. I read an article in the Evening Standard magazine last year about what designers dressed their children in. The answer was grey. I was really sad reading that. The kids didn’t seem to have any choice about what they wore. I love looking at how young children have dressed themselves, the tucked in tops and the shorts and skirts pulled up as high as they go. I was thrilled the other day when I saw a little girl wearing her headband the same way I used to wear it, over all your hair then sort of pushed up so that all your hair sticks up weirdly. If your parents decide what you wear how will you ever rebel through clothes? I never wear polo neck t-shirts, partly because I think they make my neck look ridiculously long, but mostly because the mothership wears them everyday.
After years of Mini Boden I now get my clothes from a variety of places. I have clothes from high street brands like Super Dry or Jack Wills and clothes from random places like the Isles of Scilly clothing store. I also have clothes from brands that I have never heard of, picked up in charity shop trawls. As I spend a lot of time playing tennis my sports clothing collection is rather large, I might do a separate blog on this sometime. One of my favourite things to wear this winter has been these orange jeans.
I got them from Johnnieb and they have been a mixed blessing. On the one hand they are my favourite colour, really comfortable and fit well. On the other hand they have a magnetic attraction to mud and grot of any kind. I can only wear them for one day before having to scrub at them like mad to get the stains out.
My most treasured clothes from the past I have kept. I have a sunsuit top from when we lived in New Zealand, a nightdress with three ballerinas on the front and a flared, green floral corduroy skirt. These were never handed down to my sister which in the case of the skirt she was most miffed about but all three were too special to me for various reasons. I think that fashion in this sense can hold so many memories. My grandmother used to make my cousins, sister and me dresses before her eyesight got too bad. We have obviously kept them all and they are so special. They are all hand smocked on the bodice except for the purple corduroy one on the far left which was the last one she ever made for me.
I used to wear these dresses for everything from playing in the garden to going to the ballet. The two that are second and third from the left look quite big but they used to have lots of tucks in them which were designed to be let down over time.
I think I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent so I’ll regroup. Some people wear clothes to fit in and some people were clothes to stand out. Fashion is everywhere and no one is not interested in what clothes they wear, even my brother.
A Homeschooled Somebody 