Dedicated follower of fashion

When I was a child I thought ric rac and smocking were primitive forms of torture invented by my sewing teacher. When I was 18 I thought they were cooler than cool on my hippie smocks. When I was a child I donned my Mouseketeer ears every afternoon and when I was 18 I proudly wore a tight Mickey Mouse t-shirt tucked into my blue jeans. I'm not sure where this is going, but hopefully I'll find a thread.

I am not a natural sewer and my few creations have made me my own fashion victim: the skirt stitched across the bottom; the dress with a cobweb of threads inside that couldn't be cut in case it fell apart; and the shirt that did fall apart after being worn twice. Luckily I had reached home when the fragmentation occurred.

So, unlike my friend with nimble thimbled fingers (you know who you are), I rely on what the fashion world serves up, which might not necessarily be off the peg or on the pages of style bibles. It's undoubtedly bad timing to be talking about Woody Allen and I don't want to get into the whole she said, he said thing, but I do know that he has had an impact on my life. And who would have thought that one of his major influences was in the fashion stakes. I spent months if not years wearing oversized men's shirts and waistcoats with baggy belted trousers. La di da. La di da. How could you not want to follow in the footsteps of Annie Hall?

Did it matter to anyone else that I was sporting a Klute haircut or could forge my way past Meryl Streep's accent to don ankle-length linen skirts and dusters straight Out of Africa? Was I a dedicated follower of fashion or just someone with a desire to be someone else?