Girls In Pearls

Monday 7^th January 2008. 69kg (Stomach bug - Hurrah!)

On Boxing Day this year, as is my usual custom, I went to visit my paternal uncle, aunt and cousins at their house near Guildford in Surrey. The mechanics of this event cannot, I fear, be properly explained without a little prior knowledge of my family, but as I have little wish to discuss such tedious matters and I suspect you have as little wish to hear them, we will just have to make do and take it as read.

Upon arriving at the usual Christmas chaos of my Uncle’s house, standard procedure is (After greeting everyone) to sink into the nearest available chair and have a drink, which I got stuck into with gusto. Do you ever have those moments, when you are suddenly and unexpectedly afforded a moment of striking clarity? When, through no fault of your own, you undergo a brief out of body experience, and look down upon yourself as though you were a small insect clinging to the ceiling? Well I did just then, and what I observed in those brief seconds afforded to me was truly terrifying.

I saw myself, dressed in a sensible, flattering classic grey wool dress and pearls from House of Frasier, chatting amiably about London house prices with my Step-mother and her sister who were both wearing nearly identical dresses to me, but in black. We all had nice, shiny, brushed hair, opaque tights on and glasses of moderately expensive champagne in our hands, as we affectionately watched their children and my cousins play with a new Nintendo Wii. Somehow, overnight without realising it I had become a suburban housewife. And what’s more, I was enjoying it. Me, who has always lived in horror of such a fate, had mocked these sorts of women and gone out of my way to avoid becoming anything like them. What happened? I have rebelled, for god’s sake. Over the years I have gone to art school in Birmingham, worn a range of ridiculous and scruffy clothing, painted my nails black, been a goth, a punk, and a vegetarian, smoked pot, got a tattoo, and still managed to turn into my parents without even noticing it.

It started off so innocently: a love of vintage clothing and dissatisfaction with looking so unkempt all the time. I started the project and soon discovered that it was difficult to look authentically vintage while wearing jeans and trainers constantly. After uni ended and jeans were no longer strictly necessary, I took the opportunity to invest in some new clothes: my first real trousers, sensible shoes to match, a few silk blouses and some soft sweaters to complete the new casual, forties look I was experimenting with. I love the relaxed woollens and layers involved in this style. I don’t know whether it belongs to the forties, twenties or even to no specific era at all, but think Enid Blyton, bracing walks in the sea air, adventures and afternoon tea, and you are just about there. This was precisely how I eventually arrived at the grey woollen dress and pearls.

The trouble is with a lot of clothes from the twenties to the fifties, is that most of the everyday outfits, when it comes down to it, are just what you might call ‘simple and classic.’ It is really only the hair and accessories that distinguish them from present day clothing. This means that ball gowns and poodle skirts aside, you do not always need to buy the real thing to get the look. Unless you care about precise historical accuracy (And lets face it, who really does?) it is perfectly possible to put together a full vintage style outfit entirely from Debenhams. (And unless you have a very understanding employer and/or a lot of time and money on your hands it is usually appropriate to tone down the historical re-enactment on a day-to-day basis anyway). There, of course, lies the danger. On it’s own, without hats and gloves and lacquered curls, the same forties outfit that looked so lovely in a period film can look merely boring and frumpy in a suburban living room, and before you know it, you turn up somewhere to find out you are wearing the same thing as your Nan.

But never mind. I am young and this is one of the few times in my life when I will be able to get away with dressing like an old woman. At the moment dressing like I am sixty merely serves to highlight my youth, in the same way that wearing huge men’s shirts always make women look delicate and feminine. The minute I turn thirty I will no longer be able to do it as those sorts of clothes will just make me look older. I will have to spend hours getting outfits just right so that they neither make me look like a frump or mutton dressed as lamb. So I am going to enjoy it while I can. Rather severe, plain clothes have always suited me anyway. Due to the ‘bigness’ (See Mon 28^th May) of my face and figure I have never really been one to carry off layers and ruffles and patterns.

So what should I have been wearing, if I was to be true to my age? Thinking about it, suitable options seem remarkably thin on the ground. I can’t honestly say I know what is fashionable at the moment, I suppose it’s probably some complicated creation involving leggings and neon. Most people I know seem to dress pretty normally on a day-to-day basis. If I asked what to wear they would probably just advise jeans and a pretty top, which is all very nice, but not exactly me. No, I will just have to accept my fate and resign myself to attempting to be the very chicest suburban yuppie I can be.