Pyjama Saga – The 3Es & Wardrobe Wonderland

Where's the gold rush?

I was thinking: I’ve strayed from the path.  Meandered from my catwalk on the wild side and marauded all over the shop.  And so, I’m back to talk about the 3 E’s of style – all things: eco-friendly, ethical and economical.

2009 was not good on the wardrobe front.  Well… I say that, but in one way, a severe lack of money way, it was.  My impecuniousness mess meant I wasn’t at liberty to go frittering my hard earned dosh willy nilly. 

Coco wore the trousers - in bed...

On the other hand lack of dough means lack of choice. It means you seriously consider shopping in Primark, against your better judgement.  It means charity shops, boot sales and swishes are your big 3 E destinations; which is fine except if you really need something, it’s kinda luck if you come across it second hand. 

In fact, actually finding what you’re looking for is one of my biggest bugbears (I never say that in real life).    I just don’t get how there are so many shops, with so many shelves, featuring so many products, in so many variations and yet finding bog standard men’s-style pyjamas – pjs without ‘sex kitten’ emblazoned across the chest in diamanté – is nigh on impossible.  I have to say my timing – pre Christmas and post Coco avant Chanel biopic fashion frenzy – may have had something to do with it.  But it’s not only pyjamas, I’d like a red scarf. Pink, purple or green, yes.  Red.  No. 

And I’m not alone.  My friend has been searching high and lo for a navy blue duffle coat with red lining a la Paddington Bear, for years.  Having found said item to be a myth she investigated the possibility of having

Can't find those bear necessities...

one tailor-made.  All fine and dandy, if you’re Jonathan Ross, cos she was quoted something like, £500 for the job!  Eeek!  Somewhere like Vogue would say this is an ‘investment’, which it kinda is, unless like some of us you don’t have a credit card; and seeing as I’ve spied things for a few hundred squids in their Cheap & Chic supplements, who knows what planet they bank on. 

So I was intrigued to read this on the future of fashion, 2010 – 2020, in the free Stylist magazine thrust in my face outside Fenchurch Street station: 

“The customer will design their own clothes and accessories online or at store computer terminals.  Within an hour, their unique creations will be ready and thanks to 3D body scanning, they’ll fit perfectly.” 

Modern Millies are happy Millies

Sounds like a return to good old fashioned tailoring, with a Thoroughly Modern Milly of a twist to me.  Imagine clothes which actually fit! Wild, eh? Although I do have some reservations about the turnaround time of an ‘hour’!  Who is gonna be making these clothes – elves?  Or maybe by 2020 the economy will be so far up Sh*t Creek employing nimble-fingered infants will be the norm as parents who went mental with the IVF and got a litter of little ‘uns are forced to send ’em out to work for a pittance.   Cos my next thought is… cost.  There must be a catch 22 ‘ere somewhere…

But before I go meandering any further down Pondering Alley I just want to end this ‘ere entry by saying: it’s pretty darned obvious our consuming passions aren’t being satisfied by the fast fashion industry.  Or at least, if some of us are dead set on chameleon couture, then it needs to be properly disposable, ie, biodegradable, otherwise it’s just more slag for the heap.  And for those of us with a more long term wardrobe plan then it means you should be able to find the perfect LBD in one hit, instead of twenty clangers.

New Year & Northern Lights – A Kaleidoscope of Possibilities

I used to mark the New Year with a list: all my dreams and aspirations for the 12 months ahead written in black

Everything's crystal clear now...

 and white. Everything seemed possible. Clear as crystal. The year spread out before me ‘Like a virgin… shiny and new’. And my cup brimeth over with great expectations. Until, one year, I had ‘The Shining’ moment.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, TSM is when you realise someone, in this case me, is a total fruit loop. You know, when you take a peek at what you thought was a masterpiece of a novel only to find it’s actually: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” typed a terrifying number of times. This is, of course, a whole lot worse when you are both the discoverer and the discovered because it just begs the question: Who the hell am I? And possibly: Am I dangerous? And: Should I believe myself anyway?

In my nut-case, my crazy-as-a-coconut head had deemed it necessary to create a To Do list at the beginning of the year which it then tried to prevent me from completing with all it’s lame excuses. You can do it tomorrow. That guy smells funny. There might be spiders in there. What if it turns black and falls off? And so on. Until one year, having completed my deep and crisp and even NYL I turned over what I thought was a new leaf, only to find last year’s practically the same completely uncompleted list on the other side!

Yes, my name is Earl (actually it’s not… that’s a boy’s name, but I like that programme.) and I’m a list-aholic. It’s just that it wasn’t until New Year last year that I realised how grave the situation was. NYL had seeped into everyday lists… which had just sort of multiplied like germs. And as my room

and my life got out of control, in an attempt to feel just a teensy bit better I’d write another list to sort it out. Then the list’d look so darned long, that I’d get all overwhelmed and just ignore it… until I felt compelled to write another one.

So when Mr Glittery was helping me organise my stuff ‘n’ nonsense last January, he was perhaps the victim of his own TSM, when he realised I really wasn’t just a coconut in name, but also in nature. “I need a lever arch file for my lists,” had been the moment of realisation. And I think

Crazy as Coconuts

sifting through all my unfinished art, writing, customisation projects and whatnot just emphasised the fact. He opened up a scrap book full of seemingly random magazine cuttings and said, “Now I know what’s going on in your head.” I felt ashamed. I wanted to hide it away like the mad woman in the attic. I tore my semi-completed sham of a novel away from his prying eyes and threw it in the bin. We’d unearthed far more demons than I was willing to face.

Then I made him angry. I think he thought the outburst was about one thing… possibly because the words which came out of my mouth suggested so, but in fact it was all about me feeling s**t about me and thinking: he must just wish he was back with his ex Sigourney-Weaver-look-a-like-script-editor girlfriend who actually gets things finished; doesn’t live with a bunch of rowdy 30-something guys who carry on like students; and most definitely doesn’t have a lever arch file for her lists. And… as it turned out I was right.

So this year, to mark the new me, as well as the new calendar, lists are banished and I’m creating a vision board. In fact I’ve had one on the wall for about six months or so now, well actually there’s kinda two. One side is a

Mr Universe

prompt for me, the other’s for the universe – by this I mean, you kinda let the powers that be get on with it… I know some people will think this is yet another sign that I’m on the slippery slope to insanity with skis on, but let me tell you something, just as many, if not more things have gotten done

on the ‘universe’ board than the ‘me’ board. Top of the popsicles is Iceland!

To make my grand entrance into 2010 in style I’ve attempted to purge myself of some of them aforementioned demons by having a bit of ‘spiritual detox’. I had my chakras balanced, cards read and a bit of sound healing – drum and all! People say, “Do you believe

Winter of discontent

all that stuff?” But I hardly believe myself most the time… Not to mention the fact that at our first reading she said – without prompt – “Oooh, it’s a bit crazy in there, isn’t it?” Meaning my head. “It’s full of magazine cuttings!” Sounds like my head to me.

And I’m leaving this year, this decade, behind feeling like I’m really starting to excavate the diamond from underneath all that rough stuff. I’ve gone back to basics: my roots. I’ve dug out my childhood dreams and put them in motion– honestly I knew far more then than the older me! My love of colour, need for creative expression, and enduring fascination with fairytales, I’ve realised, are far more than mere whimsy; they are necessary to my wellbeing – food for the soul if you will.

Northern lights at the end of the tunnel...

I’ve been experiencing my own Narnian netherworld (always winter, never Christmas), a kinda dark night of the soul, in recent years and although it’s been a bit of a bleak trek, I think that in being forced to retreat, to take a back seat, I have at last been able to see the always present light in that all encompassing darkness.  Like the Northern Lights the future is a bright, iridescent, kaleidoscope of possibilities in the midnight sky.

Email from the Future You – Ooh, scary…

Cosmic ordering – I’ll have no. 36, 67 and a coke please…