This week I have lived in my Topshop pirate pants and, oh the shame, tracksuit bottoms. It's been that kinda week. But I on general principle despise sportswear, and my pirate pants were starting to need sewing/patching up and generally looking a little worse for wear.

I went on a bit of an epic search for an alternative, and came up with these.


I am NOT wearing them ironically with vertiginous heels and a £2000 blazer. I am wearing them slumped in a corner with the world's worst hangover, fuggs and a 'vintage' football shirt.

breath

For the past week or so, a twitch in my left eye has been extremely irritating me. The fact is, I am experiencing the extreme fatigue of accumulated stress and lack of sleep. So one day I decided to go to sleep at 10PM, but I was still tired the next day, on which I reverted back to normal and went to bed past midnight. I know, it's all my fault really. A couple of days ago, I even tried cutting out caffeine, but my eye continued to twitch.

Today, the first day of my week-long break, after a night out last night, I woke up naturally at 9AM. I wanted to die. I was so tired.

Plus, I had a whole day planned. On the way there, I just closed my eyes, and when I arrived at my destination, I really didn't want to get out of the car. But, I did. And as soon as I got out of the car, my tiredness melted away.

I entered a world of luxury.

London is a strange city, where a stone's throw can separate vastly different worlds. But even more drastic, the London I live in is in fact separated by miles, and often feels like a different city.

In W1, everything is special. Everything is moneyed. Everyone is beautiful.

I tried to marvel at and find meaning in Damien Hirst's 'Poisons and Remedies'

Then I desperately needed to pee and so used the Claridge's toilets (I was tempted to take photos but wisely abstained). It was the most beautiful toilet I have ever used.

Then, the biggest treat, tea at Fortnum and & Masons (whose toilets nearly rival Claridge's).


And finally, a (genuinely) fascinating art installation at the White Cube Gallery (and more beautiful people to admire).


I felt rejuvenated. I got home, and went for an hour long run and when I finished I didn't feel tired. I think there must be some sort of fuel in beauty, either than or I'm still running on caffeine after abstaining for two days.

backwards and forwards

I'm still trying to work backwards and catch up, but time keeps on moving forwards and new things keep appearing. It sort of feels like when you try to climb back up an escalator.

You see, I can't stop buying new things.

I don't know what it is, if I'm trying to fill a hole in my heart, if I feel like money is burning a hole in my pocket now I'm not in crazy summer spending mode, or if I am just noticing holes in my winter wardrobe and am in the mood to shop.

Actually, scratch that bit about needing stuff.

I just bought a yellow bag.(I was looking for a black bag)

interlude

I have so many ideas for posts to write, but they all require illustration (i.e. photographs). Photographs which I currently cannot take because I arrive home in darkness and flash is not my friend.

So, for the moment, all I can post are memories of the sun. Memories of this summer, the strangest summer, or season, of my life. Maybe not even memories, more moments, which I barely remember passing. A summer of such intense feelings that they drown insignificant images. And now, these images have become connected to moments, thoughts, emotions and yet at the same time capture such a fleeting second. I can see them for their beauty, and that eases the memories.

definition

I think I'm more of a winter dresser, in that in the winter I seem to start dressing more creatively. I have a few nice summer dresses, but apart from that my summer wardrobe is basically casual separates. Whereas, right now, I am shopping more, experimenting more, thinking about my outfits more.

Before this shift, I had a uniform: denim and a black top. I was expert at varying on this theme, with a hundred different style of jeans and black top. It was a tad dull and uniform-like, but also comfortable and failsafe. Right now, though, I don't think I've worn jeans for over a week.

Instead, my style's gone a bit mad. And I try to think about it, and analyse it, and come up with a definition, but I fail. Everyone around me, all of my friends, seem to have a perfectly defined style, while I wildly oscillate. While I am aware of my shifting moods, the thing which makes my undefined style all the more obvious is other people, and their comments.

I love wearing pink lipstick, because it makes my lips look less corpse-like, but it's not as high maintenance as red lipstick. I love wearing waist belts and fitted silhouettes because they flatter my in-and-out shape. This personal preference has resulted in what I feel like a vaguely 50s/60s style. But this is simply a vague impression, and the main reason I have pinpointed it is the offhand comments I have remembered. One friend said I looked like a girl in a 60s inspired band, I looked them up and she has long blonde hair (mine is short and red). He then said it was something about the collar on my dress. A collar which is not even real, but stitched on. I am sure that the inaccuracy of the details in my '50s' look would make a die-hard retro fan break out in hives: no-one wore crepe soles in the 50s!

Other times, at 7 in the morning, I will want to wear something baggy and therefore unconstricting, and so I will pair my flared pussy-blow blouse with an equally flared squared, and then I look like a member of the women's institute. That is not the intended look here, guys, and I don't appreciate the comparison.

Someone told me the other day that she has never seen me wear the same top twice. I don't know her very well, and I was a bit taken back. I never feel like I have very many clothes, buthen a highly clothes conscious male friend turned around and said 'you know, it's true, you have so many clothes'. I don't actually buy very much, but I also don't throw away very much, and when I was younger I had more time and money (to spend on clothes). As a result, my wardrobe is a wild mixture of old, new, and even older (passed on, handed down, borrowed), distinctive pieces neglected in a six month long black t-shirt and jeans phase and therefore totally familiar to me, but no-one else.

Today I received a lot of compliments, and I understood why. It is not that my outfit was particularly special, and if I posted it on here it would not create a huge response (in brief: loght grey jersey mini-dress, charcoal wool cowl neck jumper, black leggings, cinammon wool legwarmers under tall browny-grey boots, stripy wool navy and white scarf, khaki bomber, khaki Longchamps tote). But it was a style which mirrored their own. When I wear pink lipstick and fitted retro dresses, I am a million miles off from the 80s red-lipped, sparkly, baggy and short vintage of my friends. Wearing a bright skirt or dress that reaches my knees is an even more foreign notion, and makes me look 'old-fashioned', be it in a succesful retro combination, or a less sucessful librarian unchic. Short, uncolourful and casual: familiar, ergo 'really, really nice today'.

That's not to say I didn't like today's outfit; I did. I love the combination of the matching wool texture with the palette of a range of neutrals. I love being able to snuggle up a million layers. But for me, this is 'comfortable'. This is, 'I don't want to attract loads of funny comments about looking old-fashioned'.

Reactions shouldn't form my personal style. But they do, and they inevitably affect the way I feel about an item of clothing, and my overall style. On this ramble through my thoughts over the past few weeks, I seem to have wandered away from the original path of 'defined style', a tangent which I don't feel too guilty about as it is a pretty well-trodden path. But I also don't seem to have arrived at a destination, a decision about how I feel about the whole act of creative dressing. The only thing I do know is that I am enjoying the journey, and seeing what new ideas I arrive at.

On Friday night, as I struggled to keep my eyes open and my brain engaged in wakefulness, I realised I couldn't remember the last time I had been free to do as I wanted, and not too tired to do it. Reading before bedtime is not an option when your eyes are forcing themselves shut...

I decided that the next morning I would go for a run for the first time in more weeks than I could remember.

It was painful, and short. But I felt so great afterwards.

Sunday I dedicated to reading (a fiction, for pleasure, how novel) and then in the evening, I went for a walk.

That is not to say that I am suddenly carefree and spritely: I am not. I slept 6 hours last night, and the night before. Hence, why although I decided that on Monday I would resume writing, I ran out of time and was a day late. Restoring the habits which practice makes natural isn't effortless, but I think it's important.

I can feel the joltiness in my writing, I am too unused to writing outside of the restraints of essay structure. But I'm going to do my best, and I'm going to work backwards, and hopefully as I reach the point where I stopped writing, I will get nearer and nearer the fluency I had then.

So.

Most recent purchases:




Never fear; I only ever wear them together when part of a Catholic schoolgirl in Gossip Girl ensemble, which is only rarely (and no, I am not putting a picture of that up on this blog for all to see - if any of you are still out there).