London Fashion

Fashion Tribes

How good it feels to dress in London and not be judged.  You cannot go wrong.  Anything and everything is in fashion.  You’ve got the euro-chic look:  At La Bottega our favourite Italian deli, where they make the best decaf capuch in town  it’s capes galore, even fur-lined.  There’s the  urban warrior look in Camden (the new grungy), the eternal staid Barbour clad, cashemered  chelsea-ites, the liberal non-fussy Batterseasiders and into the mix put all the Polish babes who seem to be both colour blind and fashion geniuses wearing funky mismatch outfits with alarmingly ugly shoes. 

I am curious to know which fashion tribe I will end up in.  A mixture of them all would be interesting and disastrous.  Now that it has turned cold I am into wearing hats.  I wear Lexi’s Burberry cap that I picked up for her in a second hand shop a few years back.  I used to wear hats when growing up here in the erm…well a while back.  My Aunt, who is the black sheep of the family for running off with an Italian and then forgetting everyone’s birthdays…or something along those lines…used to give me her hippy hats in the er…hippy days.  I particularly remember a large brown felt hat that was too big but made me feel oh-so glamourous atop my duffle coat and school uniform.

Hats define me, jazz up an otherwise boring ensemble, add a little mystic, keep me warm, hide greasy hair and are also excellent if in need of some privacy.  So why did I not wear hats in Switzerland?  You know that saying that we are all shaped by our surroundings?  Well I was definitely more conformist back in CH.  Perhaps it had something to do with the beautiful yet monotonous landscape of  cow, field, shed (for cows), lake,cow, farm, mountain, field, horse, bottle bank, farm, cow, horse, field, mountain.  Or possibly I was just lacking in courage.    A hat used for anything but keeping rain off the head would have looked pretentious to the locals and in Geneva I would have been seen as a tall poppy and looked upon with disdain and incredulity.    

London allows me to be more me.