This is a weird thought I had just now as I pressed ‘add to basket’ on Top Shop online as I found myself accidentally purchasing a nice new pair of patterned flared trousers (in the sale). This thought is related to the one I had a few weeks ago about feeling like a grown up. This one, however, relates exclusively to clothes.

This is me in my green velvet coat and one of my many hats

This is me in my green velvet coat and one of my many hats

When I look back at my 18-year-old self, with a penchant for clothes from Next and River Island, I think my style was more mature then than my years and more mature then than it is now. I’ve changed since then.

I definitely dress ‘younger’ (relative to years) than I did then. I’m quite happy with the style I have developed into. However, I’d be mortified if the people I see on the train or walking around Shrewsbury are thinking ‘Oh my god, she should dress her age and not act like she’s in her twenties again!’ I wonder if I’ve started dressing younger since becoming an art student. I was firmly in the Fat Face and White Stuff camp before I started my art degree. Now I have one foot in Top Shop and another in Severn Hospice / Oxfam / British Heart Foundation. Have I regressed because I’m spending more time with younger people? Is youth rubbing off on me? Am I trying to be younger than I really am? Am I rebelling against the grey hairs and wrinkles?

If I had to describe my style I’d say it was a charity-shop cum arty farty coffee shop Sex and the City eclectic mix. I like clothes more now than I did as an 18 year old. I didn’t have much money then, which hampered me somewhat in developing a personal style. I have more money now and the charity shops are much more accessible and varied in their stock than they were in 1990.

This is a picture of my current favourite trousers.

My best buy of 2015 so far

My best buy of 2015 so far

But at the age of 43 should I perhaps be wearing trousers more like these below? They are elasticated so comfortable around the three-baby belly. They are a nice, sober colour. And they are straight-legged and in them, I’d be more inconspicuous. They look very comfy.

Perhaps I should be wearing these

Perhaps I should be wearing these

I also live in DM boots. I used to think (when I was 18) that anyone over the age of 22 still wearing DMs was deeply disillusioned and stuck in a deep well of nostalgia for their youth. But now I can afford DMs (at 18 I had to save for weeks). Now I am that stuck-in-the-past person (although I don’t feel as if I am stuck in a nostalgic rut). I have purple velvet DMs. I adore them. Should a 43 year old be wearing these (with the patterned trousers above)?

My favourite boots

My favourite boots

Perhaps I should be wearing these nice court shoes?

These look very foot-friendly

These look very foot-friendly

In less than 20 years from now I will be 60. Surely, at that age, I won’t be gallivanting about town in purple DMs and Top Shop trousers? The thought of having to change my clothes sense because I’m granny-age depresses me. I’m sure it will change to some extent (after all, it has changed during the last twenty years) but I hope that it doesn’t veer too closely towards M&S and Edinburgh Woollen Mill. As I expressed in the blog entry about being a grown-up, equally, I would hate to be a subject of ridicule by the youngsters (the 43 year olds) and my contemporaries in their pleated skirts and tan tights.

Ughh

Ughh

Watch this space. Perhaps I’ll update this entry in 2033 and we’ll see what I am wearing then. Ten pence says I won’t yet be in slacks and court shoes.