Passion For Fashion

I love fashion. LOVE it. High waistlines, rock band t-shirts, metallic hues, the colour grey, tulip skirts, skinny jeans, empire line dresses, flowing headscarves, wooden wedge heels… hell, even egg-shaped silhouettes, dog tooth print and navy take on a new, aesthetically pleasing, must-have air with the onset of the new season. (I mean navy! What’s the point? Either produce items of clothing in black, or choose a nice colour, not muted, drab, “I-shop-at-Next-or-somewhere-equally-boring” navy.)

When I walk into a clothes shop (esp. Topshop – see most of my posts!), something happens to me. I am possessed by a mad, panicked desire to buy everything, and all sense of budget and restraint escapes me completely.

Every week, I scour the pages of Grazia, ingest all the information, then scuttle off in search of the latest hot items (last week, it was high-waisted jeans and a funky little bag-belt thing from River Island (the jeans look vile on me, and I have nothing to wear with the belt, so spending the relatively small amount of money on the belt would inevitably be a false economy).

And it’s not just clothes (and shoes and accessories…). I am a complete skin-care and make-up junkie. My bathroom looks like Selfridges make-up hall (although sadly smaller and with far fewer products, but you get the picture).

And so 2 years and some £10, 000 (so far) into law school, I am left wondering: what is my real vocation? Do I want to stay here, a cog in the corporate machine, climbing the endless ladder, working 12 hour plus days, only to bang my head on that glass ceiling, destroy my social life and put an end to any remote possibility of ever managing to have a relationship? Or, should I dust off my quill and return to the barely-started path (a few years ago) of writing, go down the creative road and combine it with my love of fashion and beauty?

No: I am definitely doing the right thing. I want all of this; it’s a perfect channel for my innate workaholism. I enjoy the thrill of being intellectually challenged every day, of being pushed to my limits, of having a huge ladder to climb. I even derive a perverse pleasure from fighting (against? Within?) the patriarchal corporate order.

And I can do it all without batting so much as a mascara-coated eyelash.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Topshop to view the new collections.