I would go out tonight.....

On Valentine's day I am troubled by notions of maintaining the personal fabulousness that attracted my gorgeous talented intelligent husband to me in the first place. Not because he could ever less than worship me (suck it up singletons, I'm still a newlywed and all this schmaltz is why you want one too, so no pretending you'd be any better), but because he's lots and lots of fun when he's in that 'new toy' mood that comes with seeing me in gorgeous new outfits. However, barring a few individual pieces I've found in unexpected places, which are mainly 'out' clothes rather than 'day' clothes, my wardrobe's full of black vest tops and jumpers I've washed to death, two pairs of jeans and a very old quilted skirt. I've been trying for about a year and a half to get enough clothes to last the week without freezing my arse off or doing the same laundry half a dozen times, but somehow every season the clothes are either minging or entirely the wrong colours.
This season doesn't look like setting the world on fire, let alone starting a flame in anyone's heart. The main theme seems to be army greens embellished with gold gypsy-like accessories- what I like to call insurgent Chic. Although I like to have a touch of zeitgeist in my wardrobe, neither army green nor gold are 'Winter' colours, so they're no good for me at all (it's a colour analysis thing I had done before picking out my wedding dress). They also seem to lack any kind of body armour or weaponry concealment capability, so no use if you'd been caught in the Great Ikea Massacre. Juicy will no doubt release olive and gold velour tracksuits so the fashionable chav about town doesn't feel left out. The girly/eveningwear version of insurgent chic, Fake Asylum Seeker Chic, sees similar styles in different colours. For example those skirts which appear to be made by cutting a hole in a Camden Market throw and gluing those large sequins from the bottom of your mum's sewing basket that have been there since Christmas 1978 all over it. Not only are these the stupidest single item of clothing since shrugs, but the colour palette for FASChic seems to be based on what cheaply produced clothing looks like when it's been round the circle line seventeen times.
This leaves us with Ironic Tory Chic, based partly on extending the 80s fashion revival past the Thatcher powersuits era and into the early-nineties-but-not-if-we-can-help-it Major phase, with a little extra inspiration from Conde (Rice, not Nast). I'm seeing built in granny blouse ties, nasty cardies and grey, grey, grey. As a colour, grey's fine. As a fashion statement it's a contradiction in terms. We had to wear grey suits in the 6th form at school, and skinny or fat, suitably skintoned for the colour or not, pretty or bearing ugly-stick scars (and sorry about this ladies) nobody looks good all in grey, and if you wear a grey outfit with a coloured shirt you look like a 6th former who has to wear grey to school. You'll know one of those rare people who can get away with grey suits by the way you didn't realize they were there until you noticed a creeping feeling of mistrust building for no apparent reason. The extra sting in Major Chic is Fur, the last hurrah of the rich, cruel and heedless. It has to be real fur too. To go with grey perhaps orange with white tips...
So this season I shall mainly be wearing: white cowboy boots, black and white fake fur cowprint anything at all, small enamel LibDem pin, black poncho (£7.50 in Accessorize sale, great seeing as it's only nearly warm enough to wear it now without a coat underneath), the two year old jeans that are only nearly frayed and beaten enough, and my only new item of clothing for this season: a Camilla P-B "Hello Princess" T-shirt.