Fashion

Fashion is subjective.

A large part of that statement goes without saying: of course it is. If it wasn't subjective, it wouldn't be fashion. It would be called telling us what to wear and then making us wear it.

The thing is: I don't think I've really been aware of just how subjective it is until recently. Today, actually. Specifically: 45 minutes ago.

I love fashion. As with everything, I'm divided into two: the part of me that adores fashion, and thinks it's incredibly important as the only art form we become a part of, and can - at a push and with a pinch of luck - be quite stylish, and the part of me that wears a tracksuit, Crocs and a hair scrunchie and thinks nothing of it. Were I ever to become famous I can guarantee that the latter would be what would go in the papers, but - truly - I do love fashion. Or at least I thought I did.

Recently, in what I can only describe as my umpteenth late 20s crisis, I've been deciding that I'm too old: that my heart just isn't in it anymore. In anything, but specifically in fashion. I've lost the will to style. I've been slipping down the slippery slope from casual to chav: from not caring too much if I'm caught in red rubber shoes, to realising I haven't worn anything else in 3 weeks, and that on putting a normal pair of 4 quid pumps I actually said "Oooh, real shoes". Today I wandered to the shops in stripy fleece trousers - fleece on the outside - (too short, too tight, not quite meeting my shoes), obligatory red faux-Crocs, chiffon scrunchie, hair band I bought to use when washing my face, jumper with natto stuck on the front, and didn't even realise I looked like Waynetta slob until I was at home, getting back into my more comfortable clothes. Seriously: these were the less comfortable clothes I had worn shopping. I owned items even more hideous.

In a panic - in a moment of Jesus-Christ-and-I'm-not-even-30-yet horror - I tugged on some normal-ish jeans and scootered as fast as I could to the local clothes shop. And then I scootered to another. And then another. Because all I could find was hideous, lace covered, flower covered, button covered, frill coated, beaded, sequinned monstrosities with bad English written cheekily all over them. Clothes that have clearly been designed for teeny tiny children, and yet somehow accidentally made large enough for adults. And I wandered the clothes aisles, picking them up in confusion, holding them against myself and thinking: this is it. It's all over. I don't understand fashion anymore. I'm out of the loop. Fashion looks more hideous on me than my stripy fleece trousers do.

And then I took myself to Uniqlo, which is completely bereft of all flowers and sequins and frills and lace, looked at the plain black tshirts and grey trousers and thought: oh God. And this stuff makes me look like a teacher. Like a teacher. And I might be a teacher - temporarily, for now, and somewhat reluctantly - but I don't want to goddamn look like one. I used to work in PR, for God's sake. I used to be cool. 

At which point I gave up entirely, went home, lay on my bed and decided that it was all officially over. That my shot at style, and fashion, and looking remotely edgy or attractive - or even like I don't have old food stuck to the front of me - was done. I would just have to fade gracefully into the countryside, count myself lucky that my boobs don't yet touch my navel and hope that when death found me at least my knickers were clean.

And then - as if as a message from the universe - I remembered: the world doesn't end and start with Japan. Maybe, somewhere else - in a far off, distant land - there is a happy medium. Maybe, somewhere many, many miles away, there are clothes that are neither covered in lace and ribbons nor the fashion equivalent of an army uniform. Maybe - just maybe - there are clothes in the world that would make me want to wear them. That would make me want to get out of my tracksuit before the rot set in. And, with that glimmer of hope, I got up and looked on TopShop UK online.

And there they were. Clothes designed for adults, by adults. Clothes I could wear, happily. Better: clothes that I wanted to wear. That, frankly, I was clamouring to get my hands on, just so I could feel human and young and female and cool again. Instead of an old, frumpy countryside teacher which is how I currently feel (and, in fairness, look).

It's all still there: I'd just forgotten there was a world outside. And I've been so long in Japan, I'd forgotten that fashion exists that isn't Japanese. And let me tell you something you've probably already guessed: frilly, flowery, lacy little dresses look adorable on 5 foot 2 Japanese girls with no boobs and swishy black hair, but on a 5 foot ten curvy blonde? Not so good. I look like a cross between a fat giant Barbie and one of the little dolls my aunt puts on top of toilet rolls.

Frankly, if anything has made me realise how much of a shock returning to the West is going to be, it's the last 45 minutes. I'm an English girl who used to work on Carnaby Street - literally where the fashion of the 60s started - and I'd forgotten British fashion existed. Actually forgotten. I'd started believing it was me that was built all wrong, and not that I was in the wrong place for me.

I'm not too old at all, and I'm not dead yet. I'm not too tall, or too fat, or too blonde, or too "masculine" because I look terrible in a ra-ra skirt. I'm not fading anywhere gracefully. But I think it's time for me to start preparing myself to finally come home.

To a place where I can finally be myself again.