Location : Bowes Museum @ the Catwalking: Fashion Through The Lens Of Chris Moore exhibition

Gone are the days when a love of aesthetics meant a lack of intellect. Our fashion bibles tackle social and political questions, we like our clothes with a touch of art history and our garments made with ethics. It's amazing, living in a time when fashion comes hand in hand with thought. But I think we still only see that from the inside, while others doubt the ability to do both looks and books.

Within the circle, we see it all. Tabloid art history giving us our references, Manrepeller telling it to us straight, Dazed celebrating queer culture. Our favourite bloggers refuse to bullshit us with faux perfect lives and refuse to accept any falsities calling out over-editing, exploitation and inequality as and when we see it.  We see fashion living and breathing and thinking, intersecting history and sociology and psychology and politics and art and literature and more, whispering secrets from present and past to learn about humanity. But from the outside, it's easy to just see pretty pictures of the Hadid's and Kardashian's without seeing their (somewhat questionable) advocacy and charity work.

The world still treats fashion as dumb. Fashion degrees are still considered as 'easy' options in comparison to academia, and fashion jobs are still seen as positions won through socialising and being pretty, rather than careers hard fought for and worked hard for. While I know I put in work to get my internship and all throughout my time there, I still feel the friction of eyeballs rolling each time I talk about social media as a job. It's not taken seriously, and I'm not either as a result. The intellects raise eyebrows at my fashion path, and the fashion kids are all too often shocked at my academic path.

Me? I feel more than comfortable doing both. Together and separate.

Let me talk you through a day in the life: Wake up. Spend 2 hours getting ready, sitting in front of my mirror singing along to musical theatre soundtracks, tracing hands over clothes till I pull together a look with full character reference and development. Go to uni and debate literature, feminism and theory. Get a coffee with friends and debate pop culture. Write an article, a blog post, work on my book. Watch youtubers show me the clothes they bought.

This isn't me switching between two different sides of me; I don't turn off one part when I start talking about books or leopard print boots. And my leopard print boots shouldn’t come into question when I start talking theory or feminism, or anything. A good outfit neither defines nor undermines intelligence. I serve looks and books, I use books to think up my looks, and I use the looks described in books in my analysis. Did you get that?



For me, I’ve always loved fashion for the thought in it, the lineage and legacies hidden accidentally in outfits. As a writer, I love character building, spending time picking out clothes and considering the historical and cultural references behind my choices. I like spending time researching time periods, the rights of women and the things they wore as protest or submission, then walking into a room with just a little bit of their power folded into my turtleneck. I like paying homage to people, places, periods. And I can do that through my clothes and the thought I put into it, or the person I step into when I slip on my shoes. I like dressing up to go to museums, and I like what I learn when I’m there. Looks and books, together.

Those that argue that fashion is shallow and thoughtless don't think about it enough, don't look close enough. They don't give us the credit we deserve, sending models down runways wearing history lessons, art lessons, political agendas, using both sides of our brain just to dress in the morning.

Fashion always has been intellectual, it's the world's favourite form of social and cultural signalling, protest, and empowerment. Each thing in your wardrobe is born from knowledge and history, your Topshop jeans are the youngest of a long family history if you think and listen closely. Within the circle, we're considering this. Treating all our purchases as sources to say who we are and what we stand for, to consider cultural significance, using our money as our vote to support or not support what a brand or a garment represents. We're academics, really. Our specialism is just what we put on our bodies, our cited texts the newest Guardian fashion article, Madonna music videos, biblical Madonna's and Instagram.

Maybe those still considering fashion stupid just aren't quite clever enough to get the references??

I talk a lot about self-care and healing, but I realised I've never talked frankly about mental health. And while no one ever needs to divulge their struggles in order to justify their need for self-care, and I strongly strongly believe that self-care should be practice regardless of the presence or luck lack-off mental health issues, I'm also more than aware of the multitude of self-care posts, in contrast to the clear lack of open, honest discussions about experiences with mental health services and treatments. My friend recently asked me about antidepressants, struggling to find any experiences online that were simply lists of side-effects or horror stories, and I was more than happy to talk about it. But I've never spoken about it online, strangely considering my verging on TMI openness on my platforms. It's weird, and I can't help but worry that even I've fallen into stigmatism, feeling the pressure to stay silent on the particular conversation of medication. And in the interest of rejecting that, let's discuss.

Here is a brief history of my brain...

I'd say I've struggled with my mental health since I was around 13/14, moving in and out of phases of deep lows and bouts of self-harm, probably symptomatic of my over-active imagination causing me to overthink and overthink and overthink. All attempts to get any support were shot down. When I spoke to a doctor, my self-harm and depression worsening, I was deemed 'fine' and refused any counselling or support; a story far far too common.

This continued on and off. I always considered myself recovered, carrying that label of 'fine' as a shield, staying quiet out of fear of bringing back the conversations about attention-seeking or faking it. Looking back, it wasn't healthy at all, but definitely, a reaction to over-run mental health services, always reactionary or crisis support rather than on-going help or preventative measures.

Alongside this, my emetophobia was gradually becoming more and more consuming. Emetophobia is the phobia of being sick, with symptoms including...feeling sick, mine specifically sparked by anxiety. It got to the point where I lost a lot of weight when I first moved to uni, so anxious that anything I ate made me feel sick, sending me into a panic. The weight loss from anxiety brought up some issues with body dysmorphia and disordered eating, so add that to the roster. I ended up isolating myself a lot, as alcohol became a big trigger and I felt extremely insecure making me not want to go out. I also was in a very isolating relationship, and struggled a lot to be around friends as I dealt all these things along with trauma from being sexually assaulted, while all my uni friends seemed to be having the time of their life. At this point I sought out some support and got counselling which was actually a really bad and unhelpful experience, making me a bit scared of any form of therapy.

And for the final chapter. October 2017 - At the start of my 2nd year of uni there was a  noticeable change, everything started to feel a bit more out of control with more mania. The best way I can think to explain it is that my blues became the mean reds, and for the first time I ceased to be high-functioning, and in all honesty, I felt that life was unlivable feeling like I was being carried away by my mind.

I went to the doctors after friends assured me that the university health service didn't turn people away, and I was lucky enough to have an amazing doctor that refused to let me scapegoat my pill for my mental health worsening, and calmly explained that the pill was actually putting a cap on the worse of it, and I had depression and anxiety. She talked me through my options, listened to me when I said I didn't want to do any kind of group therapy, assured me that I was worthy of treatment and support, and did everything she could help me when waitlists for mental health services can be months long.

The waitlist was the reason that she decided that medication might be the best option for me. 4 months wait for CBT, 2 months wait for eating disorder therapy, and they're lower than average wait times. At the place I was in, I was scared to wait that long, so after giving me a week to think about it, I was prescribed sertraline, a Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), starting on a dose of 50mg.

The main reason why I wanted to write about antidepressants is because my experience has been totally and utterly average, neither amazing or awful. I think it's important to have people's experiences out there beyond fear-mongering articles or miracle testimonials. Anti-depressants remain a very taboo topic, causing casual conversations on the topic to be few and far between, and making it hard for people to find any advice when they're considering it as an option. And for that reason, I'm going to talk this through as fully as possible, which may be boring but I wish I could've found things like this during the week I was trying to make my decision.

Short-term

The doctors warn that the worse side-effects will come within the first couple of weeks, so it's important to have another appointment about a week after going on the medication in case there are any serious effects. I was lucky. While I had some really minor side-effects like a metallic taste in my mouth, slight drowsiness, tummy aches, I escaped any nausea which was my main fear, scared of triggering my phobia.

In the first week, I did struggle with drowsiness. I'm normally really energetic; up-early, no-napping. So when I was suddenly feeling the need to snooze in the middle of the day, that really got to me as I felt unproductive and lazy and awful. But my doctor assured me that this does stop and is just your body working harder to process the extra hormones etc, and eventually it did.

A lesson I quickly learnt; don't drink when you first go on medication. My doctor had said that I could still drink on sertraline but warned me that my tolerance might have gone down and it might make me drowsy. On Halloween, about 3 weeks in, I had a couple of glasses of wine and lost my mind. A really minor trigger majorly upset me and all the mania came back both mentally and physically as I felt nauseous and kept shivering. I realised that I was probably going to have to rebuild my tolerance and take it slow for a little while.

Struggling with alcohol really upset me as I worried it would leave me feeling isolated at uni again as I was suddenly back to either not going out or feeling the need to go home halfway through the night. I think something important to remember is that going on anti-depressants isn't like taking a paracetamol. It will have an effect on your body, and it is going to take a while to get used to it so you have to allow yourself that time. Once I accepted that and started going at my own pace, it got easier.

About 4/5 weeks in, I noticed a drop. I suddenly felt like all the effect had disappeared and the blues were getting deeper. After weeks of being more functioning, I was back to struggling to concentrate on work or go into uni, so I went back to the doctors and my dosage was raised to 100mg. Apparently, this is really common, some people just need the extra boost if those mean reds are stubborn, sometimes your body can get used to 50mg too quickly and easily, and the effects fade to zero.  I stayed on 100mg until about April/May 2018.

All in all, the short term was A-Okay. I didn't have any major side-effects and I quickly felt better. I think a couple of my blips came from refusing to accept that I needed to slow down a little and let my body chill. Listening to your body is so important, and I'm glad I've learnt that now.

Long-term

As the months went on I got used to alcohol again. I'm still a sleepy drunk, but I can easily last a full night out without becoming overwhelmingly upset or tired. I'd actually say that I can drink better than ever, with less anxiety as the symptoms of phobia dulled and became way easier to handle.

I'd say that's the main outcome, all the symptoms have dulled. I don't get as many physical anxiety symptoms anymore when I used to get bad headaches and nausea, panic attacks have pretty much stopped, and my sadness doesn't spiral into uncontrollable fits of mania anymore. In general, I feel stable and my doctor agrees. I was really worried about this dulling, with so many articles dubbing anti-depressants the enemy of creativity if it's muting your emotions. I didn't feel this, but I never could write during the mean reds. But my medication definitely hasn't muted my emotions, I remain my over-effected, over-emotional self without the sharp edges. It hasn't eradicated all the sadness, I've still had some really bad depression lows but they're definitely more handleable. I think that's the main thing, one pill isn't going to rid you of all negative emotions or anxious feelings, I think you remain depressed and/or anxious but life is liveable, you can function, and everything is lighter.

I think it has to come hand in hand with other treatment. I eventually got therapy, seeing an eating disorder specialist that does CBT. I really think without going on medication, therapy would have been lost on me. I think I needed to be stable before being forced to confront my issues, otherwise, it wouldn't have been productive. Now, I feel like I've made progress and I'm in the right place to be able to confront issues logically and actually processing them rather than spiralling.

Almost a year on I'm ready to start weaning off the medication, having already dropped down to 50mg again. I'm kinda scared, but days when I forget to take it (stupid mistake) I manage to get through the day just as easy, sometimes with a headache and the shakes. And again, I'm so lucky with my doctor who always keeps in contact with me, and assures me that there's support in place during and after I come off the medication.

To conclude my experience has been uneventful and average, but life-saving. I'm now functioning and happy. I get little to no physical symptoms, my low points aren't as crippling, my high points feel cosy and warm without burning or leaving me anxious, and my phobia has become manageable and no longer has a daily effect on my life. Definitely a success story, not without issues, however. But the medication can't take all the credit, and I don't think it ever should, my therapist and doctor deserve praise after praise for teaching me that depressed and anxious thoughts can be processed and passed over simply by pausing to think logically, who knew?!

I still have depression and anxiety, I still suffer from both of those things. But sertraline has helped me become stable and feel like life is liveable, and more than that, it's exciting. And I think experiences like mine, not instantly fixing or horrifically terrible, should be shared more, and we should talk about these little pills that so many of us are popping every morning, helping us live the day.

PS. If anyone wants to talk to me more about any of the issues raised in this post, feel free to DM me on Twitter or Instagram x

Shoes: ASOS (here)

It's hard to imagine the girl that got on the train and moved to London just over two months ago, the girl that wholeheartedly believed she couldn't do it and cried way more than she smiled. I don't know her anymore.

When I moved I was the saddest I've probably ever been. I felt shattered, reeling from unexpected, brutal heartbreak, and trying to process and prepare for a huge life event in the eye of a hurricane. I felt overwhelmed and all I could do was cry while everything was spiraling around me. My mum asked the question again and again in the days before I moved; 'are you actually going to be able to do this?' Well, I did.

In the midst of the pain, I didn't want to hear peoples words of encouragement. I shut my ears each time someone told me London would help or said I would come back changed so much for the better. And if I have one regret about my time in London, it would be spending so much of it so sad. I lingered in the loss for several weeks, going through all the motions, mourning, crying a lot, working through it all. And while I know it was necessary and healthy, and I know I still managed to experience so much and live fully in that time, it's annoying that I spent so long with tight lungs and a knot in my stomach.



But everyone was right. London did help me, and one of the things I'm most proud of is managing to adopt the city into my self-care routines. I allowed myself to shrug off the pressure to always go out and be busy, and let myself have down days. And London made it so easy for me, there's always something to do, but at the same time there are always places to hide. Hackney Wick became my favourite haven. So much quieter, people walking slowly, it was a rare area of calm not too far out of central. Taking my laptop, walking until I found a coffee shop and just sitting, quietly and alone, for hours gave me the space I needed to process things without isolation. Once I started to adopt the city, I stopped feeling like I was drowning. Once I stopped saying I was lonely each time I was alone, I stopped feeling it.

Top: ASOS (here) Bag: ASOS (here)

I was never alone anyway. I can say now that I'm so thankful for that heartbreak. Without that pre-move panic and pain, and my vulnerability forcing me to make connections, I wouldn't have met so many amazing people and I don't think I would've been as emotionally available to them. It's weird, I have best friends that I had never met 10 weeks ago.

To name one, Natasha. What would I have done without Natasha? When I was thrown into the deep end, Tasha was a lifeboat, forcing me to come out for a drink to celebrate my arrival, and forcing celebration on me my entire trip. Having a friendship that was instantly so accepting and open, was an absolute savior. Without becoming too cringe, I'll never be able to thank Natasha enough for being by my side, and I'll always remember the summer of kinship as we were both figuring it all out as we went along.

The women I met saved me, they reminded me that I was doing well, took me out, stayed in with me, and made me have fun when I still left so smothered. I was the most social I've ever been and I'm so in love with everyone I met, and so inspired by them.  Alice, Char, Holly, Emily, Amy, Tina, Ellie, Evie, Rufaro, all the girls at work, my fellow interns, and all my friends that came to visit. I was never alone, and I feel more loved and supported than ever. Cities can be daunting, you suddenly become so small in comparison and it's easy to feel alone in the crowd, but when you see it as an opportunity, it becomes one.


As unrealistic as it seems at the time and no matter how much you hate people for saying it, you have to wait out for healing and you'll wake up okay one day. I don't remember exactly when it was, but by mid-august, I was waking up happy. I was aware that I was having fun, able to celebrate myself, breathe easy. When my best friend Sophie came to visit, I felt changed and she noticed it. I was excited about life and the future, I wanted to go out and do everything and see everything, I desperately wanted to make up for lost time. I realised when I was showing her around that I felt assured, I knew my way around, I could navigate the tube without a second of worry, the word anxiety didn't cross my mind. But even more than that, I felt confident in myself. Obviously working in fashion is such an echo-chamber, you see the most out-there outfits day today so nothing is too much or shocking. But now, I'll go out in whatever I want without a second thought. My favourite things to wear have become some of my boldest pieces; my snake print coat, my pink and red clash top, my denim boilersuit etc. My outfits of black and navy have ended up further and further back in my wardrobe, my trainers have been swapped out for mules and heeled boots. I stopped caring about overdressing, and starting indulging in my love for dressing and curating a look and a character. I bought bigger earrings, colourful eyeshadows, each thing getting louder and louder. Natasha pointed out last week that my wardrobe has become a testament to my growth, I'm 10x the person I was when I arrived and I've got outfits to prove it.

The anonymity of London does so much good. You can wear what you want, go to a club and dance as ridiculously as you want, singing with your friends walking down the street at 2pm, sit alone in a cafe, mess about on the tube, no one cares. The city is so busy and so shocking that the freedom is endless, no judgment and hardly even a second look. I loved that, and it's an attitude and a confidence I'm excited to carry forward, even if I'm leaving behind my dance partners.

And the city lets you have fun, like so much fun. There's always something to do and I tried to do it all. Shows, gigs, clubs, parks, museums, galleries, shops, parties, press events, cool neighborhoods, restaurants, bars. I tried to do as much as I could, and I only missed two things off my list; bikes in Hyde Park and seeing a show at The Globe. But I have no regrets, it's just an excuse to go back. And I'm going to work so hard to go back.

After however many DMS and questions, I’m finally going to talk about it; how I got my internship at ASOS. Let's dive straight in shall we…

Obviously, internships are hugely helpful when it comes to getting a job, so a while back I signed up to a bunch of internship newsletters, so monthly I get an email with a list of internships up for grabs. One of those was run by The Tab, and almost a year ago now, an ASOS content and engagement internship was advertised. Honestly, I kind of laughed when I apply, like come on, it’s ASOS. But I thought what’s the harm in trying. The process was split into 3 parts; CV, video interview, assessment centre.

CV

So obviously the first part was to upload a CV and cover letter to their database. So here’s tip number 1; make your CV look nice. If you’re applying for anything in a creative industry, you have no excuse to have an ugly CV or an uninspiring cover letter. They don’t care about the cookie-cutter letter content, so I laid myself bare. In my letter, I wrote about body confidence, and the power of fashion to make people feel good and how I believe that ASOS is pioneering this belief. I put any and all experience into my CV; any site I’ve written for, any day/week of work experience I’ve done, Saturday jobs. Like my CV was bulky, and obviously, I included this blog, my magazine and my book. ‘Unofficial’, self-made things definitely look good, they show drive and passion, and they actually remember me at work from some of the things on my CV.

If your CV is weak, time to get pro-active. I’ve always been an exceptionally keen bean when it comes to experience within the circles I want to move in. My best advice would be to just send out email after email, and DM after DM to any local business or creative that you admire, or reach out to anyone that works in your area of interest. Even a days experience or a coffee can be super super useful, contacts are always good, and I promise you it’ll give you a fresh burst of motivation.
This is the slowest part of the process, sometimes taking months to get any response. So don’t get your hopes up, but equally, don’t be disheartened if it’s been two weeks and you still haven’t heard anything. I think it took almost a month to hear back from ASOS, but I did, and I was offered a video interview.

Video interview

The scariest part of the entire process. For big companies, video interviews are becoming more and more popular, using apps like Hirevue, which basically give you your question then film your response and send it off.

I won’t lie, this was terrifying. I had no idea what to expect or to prepare, so I just learnt the skeleton of the company; it’s origin, names of CEOs, names of insiders and people they’ve worked with recently. I looked over all the social channels and tried to mention things they’d done. In general, the questions are pretty vague, the typical ‘what makes you right for the position’ kind of questions. But the format, with the app automatically recording you and giving you limited time to think, is daunting. I think the main thing is just trying to be as calm as possible and be yourself, try and get as much enthusiasm and personality across as possible, and don’t worry if you fumble on your words and don’t say the exact right thing, they understand it’s stressful.

At this stage, I regretted not doing more research into the company’s competition so you can learn from my mistake.

I thought it went absolutely awfully. Afterwards I'd resigned myself to not getting it, but then 2 weeks later I got an email inviting me down to London to the assessment centre. I got the invite on the same day that I signed for my flat in Sheffield, so I had champagne to celebrate.

Assessment centre

I’ve only ever done one of these, so I can only talk about my experience with ASOS, but I imagine it’s pretty typical. An assessment centre is basically an interview with a task involved, that they normally give you to prepare for in advance.

My assessment centre was in 3 parts; a group task, a presentation, and a personal interview. For the interview, they gave us a particular structure to study called the STAR method, which is a specific way to answer interview questions that covers your experience and what you learnt from it. For this I prepared by knowing my experience and how to talk about it, thinking of particular tasks or jobs that were difficult and how I dealt with it etc. The normal interview stuff.

For the presentation, they gave me my task about two weeks in advance; plan a campaign for denim to cover all social channels, the homepage and style feed. And I. went. In.

For mine, I decided to focus on denim that wasn’t blue or black and to avoid jeans. Instead, I went for colourful or patterned denim, co-ords, denim tops, denim suits etc. My vibe was to image the spice girls, then style them all in denim. There were 15 other people in my assessment, all with the same brief, so I think picking something different is important. Also going that extra mile goes a long, long way. We were told that they wouldn’t be screens so to print out our presentations. And while others had printed powerpoint slides or vision board, I played on my strengths and made a zine. I printed 3, one for each assessor to keep, and put time into making it look brand appropriate and high quality. Honestly, I think this is what put my foot in the door. Effort pays off.

Presentations are not in my comfort zone. I hate them. I always end up stuttering, speaking way to fast, and then hating myself for forgetting things. So I tried to prepare enough that I knew my plan like the back of my hand, but I avoided rehearsing, so I didn’t stress myself out or make myself panic if I did happen to forget something. I put everything in my hand out, so if I did happen to forget something, it was there and they knew I’d thought about it. And on the day, I just tried to take my time and move through it logically. The atmosphere was amazing, from the minute we arrived everyone was so lovely and made us feel so comfortable and welcome. They chatted with us and provided food and drinks, and really just did everything to make us the least stressed we could be. So going into the presentation, I felt as calm as I possibly could at my dream job interview. I stumbled a couple of times, but I did my best. And that’s all you can do. Put in effort, try your hardest, get your point and your personality across.

The group interview was fun, like actually fun and stress-free. In groups of three, we had 40 minutes to plan a Valentine's campaign. The trick here is t be assertive and organised, without speaking over anyone. It’s all about balance, getting yourself noticed in a good way rather than coming across too dominating. I made sure to not speak over anyone, but then spoke up and communicated my ideas. I think what won them over on me at this stage, was me prompting the team towards finalising plans when we had 15 minutes left. Time management is a big deal, and being organised, especially when working in a team, is a must. So be that person. Have all the good ideas, communicate them calmly, listen well, and then drive the team towards finalisation. Don’t worry too much, people will be there and will notice all the good ideas you have and all the things you do, so if you’re shy like me, don’t be down on yourself. People will notice if you’re doing good, even if you’re not the loudest one in the room.

At the end of the day, I thought I’d done well on 2/3 activities; my interview and my group task. My presentation went well, but it’s hard to feel confident when something isn’t your strong point. But all in all, I felt good.

At this point, it’s important to realise how well you’ve already done. To get invited down to HQ, or get an interview, you’ve already beat out thousands and thousands of people. So they see potential, and that’s a big deal. So on my way home, I tried to remind myself that even if I didn’t get it, they know my name and they saw something in me. I’d already done 100% better than I thought I would when I half-jokingly applied.

When they called a week later and offered me the position, I cried on the phone. I’d done it.

So my top tips;

1) Apply even if you don’t think you’ll get it, or even if you don’t have exactly what they’re looking for. If you’re passionate, they’ll notice. And you have 100% more chance of getting it if you actually apply.

2) Don’t worry too much. They know it’s stressful and scary, they expect slip-ups and stumbles, it’s fine. Just worry about being yourself and showing your enthusiasm and personality. Also, I think getting your ethics across is super important, for me body positivity and representation are things I advocate massively and I know ASOS does too, so I made sure to talk about this whenever I could.

3) Effort. Effort. Effort. Effort. Go the extra mile, always.

4) Remember you’ve already done so well, and trust in your skills.

5) You don’t have to be extroverted, or the loudest one in the room. They’ll notice you if you do good.

Any other questions let me know, and if you’re in dire need of a CV boost, contributor to kiloran magazine has a nice ring to it.

Read Natasha's blog HERE

I've always been drawn to the extravagant, just ask my mum and she'll tell you the struggle to get me out of a princess dress and plastic heels when I was younger. My childhood photos are full of silly hats, bright colours, and costumes, all picked out by me. And it continued, my favourite character in any show has always been the most extravagant with my love for Ab Fab and Sex and the City proving it.  I feel my eyes move towards the vibrant, and my heart towards the bold.

But you definitely couldn't see that in my outfits, or really my personality. While I've gone through my fair few of phases (don't scroll far back on this blog) I've always gone with convention, floating along in the waves of trends coming and going, scared off from items I loved by the fear of looking stupid. However, the fear seems to have swiftly left.



Maybe it's working in fashion and having access to sample sales that let me test the water with more out-there items without breaking the bank. Maybe it's the anonymity of London. Maybe it's the incredible women I'm surrounded by, who all dress like superstars and support me like I'm one too. Maybe it's my total and utter love for burlesque and sadness that I can't live in my costumes every day. Maybe it's watching AbFab for the 1000th time. We'll never know, but over the last month, I've been stomping out of my comfort zone and into the fun zone in my vintage leather boots.

I like clothes that make me laugh or gasp, completely ridiculous, man-repelling or 100% trashy. My Mum dispairs each time I pick up a red vinyl skirt, or some leopard print flares and laugh, 'these are amazing'. And at a trying time, I need things to make me laugh more than ever, so I'm going to buy all the ridiculous, ugly-beautiful clothes I can get my hands on. There's humour and joy and magic in inventing a character that would wear pieces like that, I like to try them on for the day/night. When I wore my snake print skirt with my boots and a pinafore, I was a 1960s Dagenham girl. When I wore my pink and red silk top, I was Alabama from True Romance. When I wear my cherry print flares, I'm a 70s babe going to a gig. The storyteller in me creates a full backstory, and my inner child gets to play pretend. And I, the real 20-year-old Lucy heading to work, gets a giggle each day when I pull things out of my wardrobe or walk out of a sample sale with new costumes in my hand to try on.

It's my favourite form of escapism. My shy soul draped in vibrancy and bravery. And even on my worst days, I can't help but smile to myself when I'm walking down Hampstead high street at 5 pm in pink and animal print with hearts drawn onto my cheeks, projecting a personality that couldn't be further from how I feel, but I'm infatuated with the image of her.