Timeless

Hold the front page – the other half and I had a Christmas party to go to yesterday evening (drinks, nibbles and chit chat rather than loud music and dubious substances, and the sad truth is I prefer it that way these days and if I’m honest probably always have). As I got out my sole remaining party outfit I reflected that it dated back to the last millennium. Indeed, I may very well have seen in the millennium in it, come to think of it. One of the advantages of regular cycling is that you can at least still fit into the clothes you bought in your twenties. And one of the advantages of not going to parties very often is that you don’t wear out your party clothes, although cycle chic or no cycle chic, I don’t recommend that you do too much cycling in them if you want them to last.

Growing up I always hoped I’d become one of those women with a ‘unique, timeless style’ that people always seem to admire, even as they chase down the latest ephemeral trend themselves. In my head, I pictured this as a process whereby, perhaps at the unimaginably old age of 40, I would go out to a number of sophisticated shops and purchase an incredibly chic wardrobe of timeless classics, accessorise them with something unique that only I would have thought of, and stride off, impeccably put together, into a tasteful sunset. What I have discovered actually happens is that you stop buying any clothes unless you happen across the kind of clothes you feel comfortable in, regardless of what actually happens to be in fashion. And then at the ripe age of 45 you do a quick tally in your head and realise you have a total of five grey jumpers in subtly different styles and shades – and then do a recount and discover that it is in fact six. And that your idea of the new fashion season is the big switch from grey jumpers to checked shirts in the summer, and back to grey jumpers (black jumpers are also acceptable) in the winter. And you only read the fashion pages to a) laugh and b) discover when grey jumpers / flat shoes / checked shirts are in again so you can rush out to shops to stock up. And that you are in fact fine with that.

At the moment, I’m in two minds as to whether this means I have at last achieved a ‘unique timeless style’ of my own – or that I am, in fact, a bloke.

In other news Hoggs of Fife are advertising their moleskin trousers as having a ‘new fashionable low-rise cut’. Disaster. I may have to get myself a shotgun after all…