Like many modern young ladies, I believe I have a well dressed woman inside of me screaming to get out.
Alas, I am held back by a few things... Whilst Cake, Doritos and physical laziness stand in the way of me being a size 6, the following reasons form a sizeable barrier between me being a stylish glamourpuss and the sad pussy that I am draped in black synthetics.
My budget
How the hell do people manage to budget for nice wardrobes unless they shit diamonds?? Is this a secret everyone told each other at finishing school? Where is finishing school?
Decent clothes set you back a mile financially. So I've concluded that those owning impressive wardrobes lead very boring lives/don't go out/drink/smoke or have vices. OR they earn/have inherited a huge amount of money OR they work for fashion companies and get crazy discounts of like 99.9999%...
I don't.... which is why I wear bin bags and flip flops. I am convinced that if someone handed me, say, £10,000 to spend solely on 'fashion,' I would saunter into Selfridges, point at a personal shopper and say: 'You there, pretty-faced groomed one, bring me stilettoes with heels carved from the fang of a sabre-tooth, welded together with magma from Mount Merapi then buffed by the breasts of an Athenian virgin.'
As it stands, when your main decision buying clothes is 'Will this go with absolutely everything else in my closet and therefore be a completely justifiable expenditure?' you're not bloody well going to end up dressed like Victoria Beckham, are you?!
Losing my clothes
I find clothes surprisingly easy to lose. I would understand if it was the occasional sock or pair of knickers but I regularly lose things like trousers and dresses. What's that about?! I can't remember having ever been on a night out and returning without either of those items. I just don't understand where they go!! SERIOUSLY! And it's always the most expensive items I seem to lose. The items which, if I managed not to throw off my my balcony while in a deep sleep (the only feasible explanation...) might make me look quite stylish.
Coats are a different matter. I know how I lose them: in dark corners of clubs in the depths of winter. One glass of wine and my mind rejects that such a thing as a coat even exists. NB: A wine jacket is not an actual jacket and you will risk hypothermia without one on the nightbus.
I also loan my clothes to friends when they stay at mine after a night out and then forget I ever owned what I leant - which doesn't help matters.
Ruining my clothes
When they don't mysteriously disappear, they become rags for the collection of stains, seemingly marking every food and beverage I have ever eaten. Ever. The thing is, I still don't throw them out - I think to myself "If anyone asks, it just happened earlier in the evening and I didn't have time to change" - because that is less embarrassing...
White is really stylish. I can basically forget ever owning it. I once bought a white coat for £7 from a charity shop and spent about £500 dry cleaning it before I thankfully left it in a dark corner of a club.
Not prioritising clothes care
This basically means that I am lacsidaisical with reading labels, and therefore regularly shrink and discolour my clothes. Handwashing anything doesn't happen and neither does ironing. I've had many a decent shirt that's spent 90% of its lifespan crumpled at the bottom of my wardrobe .
Forgetting I'm nearly 30
Because this age has just crept up on me without giving me much of a warning - I still veer towards clothes that I just can't pull off anymore. Like chaps. Joking (sort of).
Kidding myself that I will EVER make alterations/send anything to the tailor
I never have done. I never will. Instead, I have ill fitting clothes with buttons in the shape of hearts that I realistically will never take to a haberdashery.
I don't care enough
As much as I think I want to be a stylish supernova, I obviously don't care enough. If I did, I would spend all my weekends trawling through different charity shops. I would research, make mood boards, keep my ear to the ground for the Shoreditch outlet sales.
But I don't. I would rather wear a pile of old shit and have fun with my mates, hoping that, for a few more years at least, I can rely on my face to be presentable enough to distract attraction from my dishevelled garb.
And when it can't rely on that anymore... probably because I've smoked too much, then I'll quit smoking and use the money I save to buy fab clothes to distract attention from my face. All seems marvellously logical to me.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.