That's Not My Age is a sucker for stripes. The latest addition to my parallel universe is this slinky maxi skirt from Topshop, it takes me straight back to the eighties. To the days when I could party like Ollie Reed and still get up for college in the morning. Apart from keeping the bar staff busy at the student union, my time was spent dodging pattern-cutting lectures and churning out jersey tube skirts on the industrial overlocker. The aim was to get the Bodymap look. Layering cropped knits over vest dresses, skirts over leggings, clashing stripes and prints and generally mashing it up. Stevie Stewart and David Holah's catwalk shows were the inspiration. A riot of beautiful people - Michael Clark, the Kamen brothers, that boy-child Felix, and er, Boy George - dancing down the runway, as happy as Nick Clegg on Question Time.
Sadly, I made the fatal error of buying without trying. This maxi skirt looks fine in the photo but the reality is not such a pretty picture. The stripy tube is a bit on the tight side, the fabric is flimsy without much stretch and Mr TNMA says he can see right through it. So, I've bought a skirt that's going to cause problems in the underwear department - and makes my arse look the size and shape of Australia. Well what did I expect for thirty quid?
Where Bodymap's heavy jersey skirts had plenty of Lycra and kick-ass hems to make them swing, this clings like a five year-old on the first day of term. Just before the first world war, hobble skirts restricted women's movement so much they were condemned by the Pope. Today, Benedict XVl is too busy apologising for the Spanish Armada, and other stuff, to have time for fashion. And anyway, my movements may be confined to a shuffle but if I hitch the skirt up to mid-calf level I can get from the bedroom to the bathroom without falling over.
Have you ever made a reckless purchase? And would you do the Topshop shuffle?
Bodymap photos from Femme Thing and V magazine.
