A practical driving outfit if ever I put one together. Me and the ever radiant Bekah drove up to the Burgh at a leisurely pace, stopping at my Dad's for a little Sandwich on the way.
Saturday dawned as a beautiful day and we were greeted by blue skies. Following a lovely lunch we found ourselves on Princes St and in the thick of a Saturday shopping during the Edinburgh festival, the atmosphere was friendly but frenetic as we looked for various items for the girls. I bought a pair of fake eyelashes and felt a little bereft.
For the first time since I started I felt a genuine stab of fear as I contemplated the considerable distance still to cover on my ridiculous self inflicted mission. I suspect this was brought on by the discovery of a rare but delightful maxi skirt in the depths of the Republic sale. I wanted one of these before I started this blog and seeing it there, rudely staring me in the face, willing me to fail was quite frankly distressing.
As I helped my friends with their purchasing and offered constructive criticism I felt myself worrying about my evening outfit and the fact that I had no opportunity to embelish with newly procured paraphenalia. It strikes me that on a big night out it is rare that no item make a debut, that I am not accompanied by a piece of recently acquired costume jewellery or a pair of exciting yet bargaineous shoes. It is not that I need new items, my wardrobe inventory clearly catalogues a veritable wealth of pretty things, many of which I love and most of which I wear. I have yet to duplicate an outfit even though I have been going now for 46 days but yet I still cannot fully comprehend the task I have taken on.
I think a large driver of my success or failure will be my ability (or otherwise) to recalibrate my mind to deal with a world in which new things are not the norm. Even thirty years ago, the idea of buying new things all the time would have been ridiculous. Manufacturing was not what it is now, the Primani phenomenon would have been a bonkers concept and disposable income was not a patch on today. I would hazard a guess that that would be the case even accounting for the after shocks of a global recession which we still splattered all over the broadsheets. It is all too easy to forget that the days when a girl had only a few items of clothing in her wardrobe are not long gone.
Sometime over the last two decades we have changed. It used to be the case that a girl with a lovely dress would be encouraged, implored to wear her lovely dress repeatedly. 'You always look so pretty when you wear your red dress' would be the cry she would hear from her friends. Now, we should be ashamed of ourselves for muttering under our breath that 'she blatantly wore that dress at last year's party'. Yes we may well chortle and I am not one for living in the past, but at some point should we consider the sanity of our ways?
Surely one should prefer to wear a dress that makes you look like a goddess more than once rather than rushing round shops like a headless chicken, freaking out that you can't find anything new that suits. It seems faintly nonsensical when I actually think about it that we shun our forgotten wardrobe classics time and time again in favour of dresses that we have not yet bought, dresses that may not fit as well as our favourite.
Has the time not come to embrace our old favourites, the things we love because we can trust them? I dare you all to dig around in the back of your closet for the stuff that you would never throw away, to put it on and to fall in love without even spending a penny.
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| My Saturday outfit, post shopping crisis and without time to apply my fake eyelashes we rocked had a lovely evening watching the Amateur Transplants in a tiny but marvellous Edinburgh bar |
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| A long drive back was broken up by a quick stop off at the petrol station, and a little moment for a photo before getting back on the road. |
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