Issue 11 - the very last one I wrote for the paper that didn't get published

Boring, frumpy, uncool or just plain getting older and can’t be bothered. Whatever you want to call it, I just don’t get the latest fashion trend, which seems to come under numerous headings. Read any glossy mag and you will see, ‘boho chic’, ‘urban cowgirl’, ‘peasant’, ‘gypsy’ and ‘hippy’. What is it with fashion, can’t someone invent something new, why do they have to keep churning out all the old stuff from years ago. A few choice items which really should have been left in the past – batwing tops, drainpipe jeans, rara skirts, legwarmers, the dreaded black leggings (with lycra) and now we are back with the hippy look and as with most fashions past it’s not the kind of thing that just anyone can wear, it always looks good on the models, but then they are all size 8 with legs up to their oxters, unlike normal people. But I guess this hippy phase isn’t all bad, there is some lovely jewellery around, but I say ditch the floggy, cheesy, clothy skirts and floppy hats and stick to what you know.
It’s not always easy to dress for your age, especially when fashion decides to completely confuse and go back a few decades. No one tells you what age you have to be before the words fashion, mutton and lamb are all used in the same sentence. You just need to look at some of the award ceremonies on telly to see what I mean, it’s not so much mutton as old heddery yowe dressed as lamb.
I have finally grown up in the clothes stakes, I now own a proper grown up handbag, having given up buying fashion bags which I then got too attached to even when they were falling apart at their poorly finished seams, only one problem though, how do you clean pink suede without having to take out a loan to cover the dry cleaning costs?
I own a proper wool girly coat which I would even go so far as to say is verging on a style from a past era, but in a very tailored chic way, I also believe in spending serious money on good quality boots and if you count the cost per wear, they really do justify themselves. The last time I was Sooth I bought boots from a grown up real shoe shop (Clarks), I had looked through all the fashion store shoe’s (much to me man’s dismay, he doesn’t like shopping and absolutely hates shoe shopping, as I’m a bit fussy), but just couldn’t find what I was looking for. I wanted walking boots (you know your on the slippery slope when you start to need shoes for a purpose), which were practical and comfy, but still looked nice and something which was not black (do you know how hard it is to find ‘not black’ ankle boots). I have a thing about black footwear, I do own one pair of black boots but only wear them with the one pair of black trousers I own (I have the same problem with black trousers).
But in the end we all wear what we feel good in and who am I to criticise having been through the eighties, but I would like to think I now have the sense to know that when it all comes back around I will leave it up to my daughter to wear.