Fashion and I have been through a lot over the years. My earliest memory in caring about my appearance was after swimming one day in the changing rooms surrounded by other girls with hairy legs and C cup bras. They had all bloomed already; half the class were excused from PE due to that time of the month. Oh how I wished for pubes, big tits and my period to begin.
The first school disco I ever attended was a learning curve. It was the 1990s and a daunting experience letting the other kids see me out of uniform, dressed up and not in my usual baggy attire. The popular girls all had tight tops on with cleavage on show and short skirts with high heels. I remember not fitting in.
After secondary school finished my Mum sent me to sewing college in London to become a seamstress – Mum had gone to typing college to become a secretary. A very working class career was ahead of me. I noticed in London there were lots of other skinny frames like mine and finally it was fashionable to be me!
During my three years at curtain road I had a wild love affair with fashion history. I got slightly obsessed with the transformation that came after the Second World War, house wife to bread winner.
I became ambitious and resented male attention based upon my looks. I knew back then amid millennium celebrity culture chaos that I didn’t need to put pressure on myself look perfect because the man I want to spend the rest of my life with ultimately would love me for my determination.
Dad was an engineer and being my father’s daughter I also got interested in the mechanics of the fabrics I was working with. I soon started knitting and weaving my own and enrolled onto a textiles course in Edinburgh. I was now at university.
By now my periods were in full flow and shaving my legs like everyone else was a burden. The northern pints and takeaways had taken their toll on my body and I had finally turned into a real women.
During the times when it was fashionable to be thin I rocked some cool outfits and had some good photos taken of me, but I can honestly say I don’t miss it at all. University had given me history and politics and business which I became much more concerned with.
I began writing and soon worked out I was quite good at it. I was never academic at school much but the more I wrote the more A grades came rolling in. It was after a summer working as a nanny reading bedtime stories that I thought I’d give writing my own a go.
Edison Yan a guy from DreamWorks in Vancouver is now illustrating my kid’s books. I enjoy the anonymity of being a writer in the days of reality TV where people sell their soles to get contracts.
My determination paid off when I recently wrote a play and submitted it for consideration at CSM MA dramatic writing course and was given a place. Its week three of my masters degree and while I still pinch myself wondering what this seamstress has in common with Harvard and Cambridge graduates I commend myself on my lack of vanity that got me here.
It’s so easy to be persuaded by magazines and film that we should concentrate on looking a certain way but imagine what you could really do with all that time you spend in the gym and doing your hair and makeup or generally impressing the opposite sex/ intimidating the same sex.
What does all this have to do with a wardrobe I hear you cry? Well I just hit my thirties and I finally found a man that’s in love with my determination. He recently found me the perfect wardrobe, which for a storey teller like myself spells some kind of happy ending.
In my perfect wardrobe lay the clothes I will wear in my final push to become a writer. They aren’t all size eight anymore but instead of concentrating on the size I remember the occasion I wore them instead. My first book signing, first publishers meeting, first day at CSM.
That’s what fashion should be about. Looking good, feeling confident whatever sizes you are finding your own style and rocking looks on your memorable days.