Looking awesome isn’t always as easy as it looks. From artful scruffiness to blaming your outfit on someone else, there are a whole lot of untruths and dark arts when it comes to the should-be-simple-but-it-isn't act of getting ready...
1. Memory loss
One of the perils of shopping on the high street is that we are all walking targets for style theft. Despite the fact that your bank account is basically a glorified Topshop store card, you still like to think that your look is steeped in originality. Which is why, for some reason it never fails to annoy you, when some chump decides to purchase the very clothes from your back. Unfortunately, at this age it is totally unacceptable to call someone a copycat. Therefore when you're quizzed on your latest Zara treasure by your least favourite friend, you're partial to amnesia. 'Love that jumper babes, where did you get it?' she asks. 'I can't remember actually. I think it's from this farmers market in Minsk,’ you answer. looks down
2. Being casual
God might love a trier, but he definitely doesn’t rate one, which is why nothing has ever been less casual than casual wear. Getting dressed for a Saturday morning bike ride in the park is a more secret agony than dressing for a black tie do. You might have just spent three hours spraying salt water into your hair or choosing the right scruffy jumper to brunch in, but you’ll be damned if anyone finds out about it. The truest deception is the 'just got out of bed' pyjama look. Everybody piles back to yours at 3am and you hear hot-sounding male voices. Of course you frantically apply mascara and a bra. Very warm nipples and Primark flannelette does not a sexy housemate make.
3. Blame
Fashion is a risky business, but shouldering the weight of miscalculated risk can be painful and overwhelming. It applies to all fashion ‘statements’ but has never been more acute that with hat experimentation. You've decided to try out some new looks and spent a whole day before a party convincing yourself you can totally pull it off. But as soon as you arrive you instantly remember you are not a hat person. You are now basically in fancy dress. But it's too late, you've been seen… there is derision. This is where relatives come in really handy. Just as you claimed your ‘stupid sister’ had plucked your eyebrows to extinction back in year 11, now your sailing your nearest and dearest down the river. 'WHAT THIS HORRBILE THING? removes experimental fedora and tosses into a canal 'My SISTER forced me to wear it - that CRAZY unfashionable FRUITLOOP.'
4. Taking the credit
Everybody has a friend whose clothes are better than their clothes and everybody, when wearing said clothes, pretends that they own them. Etiquette dictates you must loudly credit the owner in their presence but if they’re not about then of course you are cashing IN those compliments. Flying solo in your borrowed designer dress you’re scooping glory points like a sartorial Judas. By the end of the night you've even given it a colourful backstory – a back story so convincing you begin to believe it yourself. If you're an experienced borrower you will eventually have worn so much joy out of your friends' stuff they forget they actually own it.
5. Effort
Where once upon a time you used to buy your clothes, now you are expected to ‘find’ them. The more harrowing and complex the tale, the more fundamentally interesting you are as a person. But because there are only so many hours in the day it’s hard to resist temptation to play up your Urban Outfitters ‘vintage renewal’ buys. 'Oh this old thing?' you hear yourself saying. 'I just spotted it hanging out of a homeless woman's knapsack, turns out it’s vintage Marni!'
6. Cost
Not only are your garms meant to be precious one-off discoveries, they are also supposed to have cost you nothing. In a box under your bed lies a secret polyester graveyard of expensive eBay disasters. Your top may look like you've just torn it from a bin liner, but you’ll never say how much it really cost. Mainly because you are far to embarrassed to say you paid WELL over the odds for it in some very self-aware eighteen-year-old's online shop.
Follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyannhancock
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.