In the spirit of starting in a new office and the idea that you have the chance to reinvent yourself, I have been addressing the current state of my wardrobe, and I assure you that it’s not a pretty sight. If you can imagine a bomb going off in TK Maxx or Primark, then you are probably 90% of the way towards understanding the turmoil of the cupboard. The mantra is, if you can throw it in and shut the door in time to stop everything falling out, then you are cooking on gas.
Not my actual wardrobe.. but if I ever own a dressing gown like that, please somebody shoot me. Immediately.
The first step of this process was to actually sort out what I have in there in the first place. My bedroom is on the ground floor and has limited space, but I have a bathroom a floor up with ceiling to floor wardrobes, stuffed full of clothes. The problem is that I am too lazy in the morning, so have a back up chest of drawers that contain 10% of my wardrobe (call it ‘capsule’ if you will, I think that’s a word that fashonistas and organised people use) and tend to wear the same things every week, leaving me without a clue as to what is lurking behind the mysterious wardrobe doors.
I started a banshee like clear out, throwing everything into the room, and hanging and tidying for what felt like days, until it resembled a well organised shop offering a vast selection of wares in length order, with shoes nestled under the shortest stuff.
This threw up a new problem. It turns out that my sister is right, and all I wear is black, navy, coral, or a combination with some polka dots thrown in for good measure. Christ. My wardrobe has seasonal affective disorder. And fashion (and shopping) are not my forte’s.
I WISH.
So I went shopping with a more fashion forward friend, and tried on a gorgeous dress, which I bought. The problem is, that it came with a net skirt, and while deliberating it in the changing room I nearly caused a woman to suffer death by choking when I innocently asked my friend “but does it make me look like I’m harbouring a secret pregnancy scandal?” It apparently didn’t, so I bought it. Now it’s looking very pretty in my cupboard, but when I put it on I talk myself out of wearing it on the basis that I look like a little girl heading off to a birthday party in her finest party dress. Not a good look for a girl whose ‘glam’ look is wearing a pair of (tiny) heels with her jeans and throwing on a blazer for good measure.
And dresses come with so many conundrums, as I found today when shopping with a friend for the summer party we are going to tonight. After she bought a new dress, we headed straight to Marks and Spencer’s for girdle style hold-it-all-in pants, which would go as high as our neck and as far down as our knees, to prevent us from looking like a condoms stuffed with walnuts. It was an interesting experience. I picked up a dress style weapon of torture, dreaming that it would make me look like Gisele on a thin day, and went to try it on.
The reality of it was that I spent 20 minutes in the changing room in diving position with it round my shoulders, wondering how the hell I was going to get it off. I had visions of falling out of the changing room door in nothing but my knickers and a rubber ring of girdle stuck round my neck, for all to see and if I’m honest, the panic set in and I began to believe that I was going to be hampered with this unusual body addition for the rest of my life. 
During this low point, I sympathised with the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and had to talk myself off the ledge of thinking I was going to be ostracised by society. I did eventually get it off (after sweating about a stone of weight off) and managed to give myself a nosebleed in the process.
If that’s fashion, then I will put my pyjamas on and politely decline!
Tinkerbelle 