It was my day off work today so I decided to go to Reading for a day trip. “Ah-ha, mistake number one” I hear you cry. Well, I have friends there who I was meeting for dinner. Which was lovely. But my real mistake was deciding to do a little bit of shopping first.
I’d been to the Oracle Centre in Reading as a 15 year old when I was in the town for a regular swimming competition. In the sessions I wasn’t swimming I’d escape to the shopping centre and eat Millie’s Cookies and drink McDonald’s milkshakes (the diet of a true swimming champ). I remember the centre as a shopping mecca.
I think if I had returned as a 15 year old today I would have enjoyed myself more. The choice of shops wasn’t bad, but the clothes in them were.
Topshop was awash with horrid florid flowery skirts and dresses. Which even my purple-eyeshadow-clad German teacher wouldn’t have worn in 1983. If it wasn’t strewn with violent violets, dresses were covered in some kind of Pocahontas-themed tassles. All the clothes seemed to be constructed for pre-pubescents. They had no room for hips or breasts, and by the shape of them, I could have been in Topman. Don’t even get me started on playsuits.
H&M seemed to have had some kind of identity crisis, not knowing if it was young and trendy or savvy workwear. It just had drab trousers and lurid polyester tops.
Shoes were either vertiginously high, or had some some kind of Roman bondage theme going on. Office, Faith, Topshop and Zara all had identical pairs in.
I know I sound like an old fogey but I don’t get it. When I was 15, I could have worn these clothes – I would have looked a plonker but they would have fit. But I would never have had the money to buy a purple flowery lycra dress for £45. Now, I have a job, I could buy a dress that much. But I wouldn’t because it’s hideous. So who is buying this tat?
I know this sounds like the rant of an old biddy, but I feel seriously out of the fashion loop.
(PS – Whilst I’m in ranting mode… What the blazes has happened to Cinnamon Grahams?? Now called ‘Curiously Cinnamon’. WHAT?? Or sorry, to coin a Topshop-sporting, Skins-loving yoof, WTF??? According to ‘dontpanicpikey‘ “these people are cereal renamers and there should be a law against it”. Hear, hear Mr Pikey.)
