how the girl got her stripes

Me and stripes are having a wonderful love affair.

It is rare that a day goes by that I can bare to go without some garment adorned with stripes. Actually, to be more accurate, it is rare that I can put together an ensemble from my wardrobe which does not consist of stripes. If it's not a Breton striped top a la Chanel, it's probably one of my other scores of stripy tops. The coral bib front jumper, the GAP tee with thin navy stripes and thick white ones, the light blue stripey button down shirt, the diagonally red-striped bat winged belly top (!), the Uniqlo one with hand drawn lines and a shoe on the back and a rose on the front. If my top's plain, it's the perfect occasion to wear my stripey denim-y blazer. Or a horizontally striped skirt.

Perhaps it is because my stripes are so plentiful that I often find trouble get dressed. I just can't get past stripes on stripes so once I've chosen one stripey piece the majority of the rest of my wardrobe is out of bounds.

But I still can't stop buying stripes.

I have been looking for a scarf for a while now (you can see where this is going already, can't you?) since my favourite grey wool and cashmere one was borrowed by a friend then savaged by their washing machine. I toyed with the idea of leopard print for ages, thinking that would mix it up a bit. But although I have seen the perfect leopard pint scarf in my head, something is always wrong with it. Either it costs £500, or it's made of fluffy velvet, or the 'brown' is a disgusting colour of excrement, it's chiffon, sparkly, see-through, or some weird poncho-esque v-shaped design. I have seen plenty of nice plain scarves, but I have enough dull as dishwater pashminas so I didn't want one of those. And I am a complete material Nazi - I can't be doing with static hair as a result of some scratchy synthetic materials.

So when I came across a beautiful scarf which was 70% wool, £30% cashmere in COS, a shop which I have admired from afar but never actually bought from, I was worried. Isn't their stuff like crazy expensive? Apparently so; I almost wanted to cry when I saw written on the price tag: '290.00'. Then I almost cried from relief when I realised that this was the Danish currency price. It only cost a bargainous £29.

So what that it's stripey? I can live with that.