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#and then you get into the family lore about 'the time he went to kenya' or 'the time princess anne opened the school'
theteaisaddictive · 3 years
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honestly looking back my grandad had a fucking crazy life. he built airport runways in kenya. there's a photograph of him with some masai guys. he climbed every munro. he almost died twice while climbing said munros. he met princess anne. he went to thailand and only just got back before my mum was born. he was a maths teacher. he went to thailand again when my mum and uncle were young children and everybody had to get tuberculosis shots. he got invited to the queen's garden party one year. he was a head teacher. he broke his ankle tripping over a 5 cm-high fence. he had my mother convinced that the maths-themed nursery rhymes he taught her were real until she was well into her teens. he had two serious car crashes and almost certainly got a mild brain injury in the second one. he was briefly the primary caretaker for my mum and uncle while my gran was hospitalised with encephalitis. one of the high schools he taught at has a maths award named after him. he was diabetic and to this day nobody knows if it was type 1 or type 2. he was from fife. and to top it all off, he died at the objectively funniest age of 69
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theravencroft · 7 years
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Towards A Less Sexy Apocalypse Or, Do 70 Million People Shit In The Woods?
I harbor a love of post-apocalyptic writing that dates back to The Cold War, because I came of age when dad books about Soviet tanks charging through The Fulda Gap were all the rage. The current wave of post-apocalyptic books inspire a sort of rough romance amidst the fantasy of prepping, imagining riding around in your modified dune buggy with an AK gunning down the zombie hordes or the undead or whatever other monsters are out there.
But where, dear friend, do you poop? 
Even Immortan Joe and his coterie of wives had to poop somewhere, and this is something we don’t often see portrayed in the literature. The truth of the matter is a lot less sexy: you’re less likely to die from the killer walking corpses than anything else out there. Millions of walking corpses shambling around and millions of dead corpses rotting create all matter of disease-ridden filth. 
One good rain shower washes all that into the rivers. 
You drink from the river downstream.
You die, eventually, shooting liquid from every orifice because you got cholera.
I am going to say “shit” a lot in the post, by the way. 
One of the most important--but decidedly unsexy--parts of modern civilization is readily available, clean, drinkable, fluoridated water, and we do take it for granted. 
A very general guideline can be 3-4 liters of water per day to stay alive, more if you’re, say, tilling the fields of your subsistence farm to try and carve out a living now that modern civilization has been destroyed by The Bomb. And consider all the other things we use water for. There’s all the cooking, the laundry, and the hygiene. 
Let’s talk about hygiene for a moment: Washing your hands is a very modern idea. In fact, it was in the late 1840s that the idea occurred to doctors that hey, maybe we should wash all this blood and stuff off our hands, and it took substantially longer to catch on. 
If you’ve been on a camping trip and don’t have access to a stream, you know you tend to get a little funky by the end. If you’re drinking from cantines and rainwater traps, you’re probably disinclined to waste water that could be saving your life or getting yourself through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on washing your hands, especially when they just get dirty anyway. 
Ah, but perhaps your raiders will just pillage the local supermarket and get all the bottled water there.
One of the problems I have with the theory of the supermarket as survival cache is supermarkets don’t actually have that much food in them. It seems like a lot when you’re doing your weekly shopping, but you’re actually at the end of a very long chain of suppliers. Most businesses today operate using a “just in time” chain of production, where they forecast demand and then get in what they think they’ll need, then put it out where it sells so they don’t have to keep it for long.
This is where I break some bad news to you: That’s why they never seem to have it “in the back” when you ask. There’s usually not much “in the back” unless they’ve just gotten a pallet in. Usually it’s a nice excuse to hang out and make fun of you with whoever else got sent back there. Sorry. 
As a child that grew up in the South, I can tell you that any weather stronger than a thunderstorm is preceded with dire warnings to BUY BREAD AND MILK. I never knew why. I don’t think anyone knows why. But you go into the supermarket and all the bread and milk is gone. Likewise, when a natural disaster like a hurricane or big storm is coming, the shelves are gone of anything tasty or even useful. Hope you like radioactive beets or those weird mixed vegetables we used to get in a grade school cafeteria.
To say nothing of the simple fact that literally everyone else is going to have the same idea of heading to the grocery store. And that’s without taking into account all the rotting perishables, themselves additional vectors of disease. If you haven’t smelled rotting chicken and spoiled milk together, I suggest you don’t. The linoleum floors are likely to be covered with the vomit of those that tried before. 
And that’s not even bringing up the biggest issue of all. 
Let’s talk about shitting: Where are you going to shit?
Imagine trying to find a public bathroom in any major city. A former work colleague and I used to play a game in the morning when we went to San Francisco. The game is “How far can we get before we see a pile of human shit on the sidewalk?” 3 blocks was the record.
Until recently, the public sewer was “the street when it rains” and if you lived in a modern utopia, they may have bothered to cut a ditch in the roadside so you weren’t knee deep in human filth. It’s still like that in many cities of the world and even if you have a pretense of a sewer system, the fallback if the sewer system backs up is just dumping it into the nearest body of water.
Imagine a rainstorm in a post-apocalyptic city with knee or waist-high water filled with dead bodies and all the effluences and leavings of human civilization. We already know what that looks like. It’s called Hurricane Katrina. And that’s with a FEMA and local effort to clean up the debris and chaos. What if it just hangs around? 
To say nothing of finding toilet paper or, like I said above, washing your hands. And you’re not going to use precious potable water cleaning out your butthole. C’mon now. We’re among friends here. 
Ah, but you’ll take to the woods, you say. Just bury it in a hole in the backyard. Perhaps you even have dreams of composting toilets in your tiny post-apocalyptic house. We can entertain that idea, certainly, and that may be a suitable solution for a small family in a remote area where a hole in the ground. But the estimated population of Europe in 1340 was close to 70 million. Can they all, dear reader, shit in the woods?
That’s not really a solution that scales. A few people can use an outhouse. But get yourself a proper raiding gang or even the beginnings of a post-apocalyptic cult, and that outhouse is going to start filling up fast. Even nutritionally deprived apocalypse survivors poop a lot, and that’s assuming you can dig a hole and bury it without hitting the water table you’re drinking from. And just a little bit of the wrong bacteria or virus in the wrong water going into your mouth means you spend what’s left of your life praying for the sweet release of death, because there’s something else we aren’t going to have.
Medicines.
It’s a New Age fantasy that all those herbs are waiting out there in the woods to be discovered and, even if they are, are you suddenly going to become an expert on herbal lore. The truth of the matter is you depend on antibiotics. Even if you’re not taking them yourself, they’re what keep that guy in the next cube that insists on coming in from coughing infectious bacteria into your face when he starts bragging about how he’s never missed a day.
Let’s not even mention vaccines because good god that is the stupidest debate of all time and isn’t even a debate.
But we can mention them for the sake of this: You step on a rusty nail in The Wasteland and you’re not getting a tetanus shot. 
Okay, and we can mention them for the sake of this: All those dogs and cats that survive us (my cats hide under the bed just for the sake of doing so, they’ll survive When The Nukes Drop) won’t be getting rabies shots anymore. Or any shots, really. So add tetanus and rabies to measles, mumps, whooping cough, and everything else coming back because Kale Smoothie Junior couldn’t get a stick in his precious arm.
And then there’s the less urgent drugs: Raise your hand if there’s a drug you take every day to survive. Think of mundane things beyond even antibiotics. Heart pills. Insulin injections. Vitamin supplements. Mood stabilizers. Imagine the entire drug supply chain has gone away. Grandpa doesn’t get his heart pills, you don’t get your insulin, there’s no blood transfusions, and if a limb gets infected you get a leather strap to bite and a shot of whiskey before a carpenter cuts your leg off with a saw.
Moving beyond the obvious medical issues, let’s discuss the one addiction pretty much everyone on the planet has: Caffeine. Imagine everyone that has soda, tea, and coffee going through withdrawals at once. Sure, if you’re lucky enough to live in Kenya or Colombia, you’ll be rolling in the stuff but it’s not like any of us know what a coca leaf looks like or how to synthesize caffeine. It’s not going to be the zombies that get you. It’s going to be the red-eyed zombie that didn’t get twelve lattes yesterday and is really trigger happy as a result. 
Let’s not even discuss smoking, good lord. Every smoker in the world suddenly going cold turkey. Think how pissy they are in our world. Imagine how pissy they’ll be in the Wasteland.
Now that’s the real horror show. 
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viralhottopics · 7 years
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Not so haute: six writers on their biggest fashion mistakes
From tights on the beach to head-to-toe taffeta, writers reveal the outfits they regret
Kenya Hunt My version of day-to-night dressing was a night-time look worn all day
Despite working at a fashion magazine, Ive made a few sartorial mistakes. I comfort myself with the sentiment of an Instagram edict I saw: If youve never looked a little dumb, youre not having fun.
Id count the moment I met my husband as an off day, so it pains me no end that the clothes I wore have become a part of our marital lore. In his mind, the outfit is key to a story that must be retold, again and again: She wore a shiny shirt, tight jeans, big, gold hoop earrings, tall boots and a giant white furry jacket. And I said, I need to know this woman.
This visual loudness the metallics, the big proportions, the shaggy texture was my everyday look back in my late 20s, when I was living and working in New York. I dressed this way to please no one other than myself. I relished being able finally to buy and wear the labels I read about in magazines, but could never find in my suburban childhood home in Virginia.
My version of day-to-night dressing was basically a night-time look worn all day ready for whatever fun might happen later. Id think nothing of a morning commute in glittery Miu Miu heels or a gold Chlo sequin skirt. (To be fair, it was the era of high heels, flashy coats and skirts that were either very big and long, or very short.) No matter what the prevailing trend, Ive always had a soft spot for the razzle. For further proof, see this old image of me in Milan, in bright colour and print, layered on top of more colour and print.
Now, my wardrobe stands on a foundation of grey, navy and black, mostly because it suits my lifestyle and the London weather. I limit the flamboyance to my accessories (a bright shoe, big earring, bold handbag) or show it through shape, such as an enormous puffer jacket. Its just that now I choose pragmatic black rather than hot pink.
Theres a real joy that comes with loud dressing, because it requires a certain kind of go-to-hell spirit. Ive come to indulge this in a more restrained way, but I dont regret the mistakes. If I did, Id have divorced my husband a long time ago, for telling that story so very, very often.
Kenya Hunt is fashion features director of Elle.
Ruth Lewy: To think that this was my coolest look
Ruth Lewy, aged 20, with Dizzee Rascal.
It was May 2006 and I was coming to the end of my first year of university. I had just received my first proper student journalism commission: an interview with Dizzee Rascal. I borrowed a Dictaphone and hastily scrawled down three pages of uninventive questions (What is the best thing youve ever got for free?).
Now the important bit: my look. I loved Dizzee; I knew his two albums back to front and had mastered all the words to Fix Up, Look Sharp. What was I going to wear?
To think, looking back, that this was my very best outfit. My coolest look. Not one floral print top but two, a T-shirt layered over a shirt. Not one necklace, but two. (Made with beads collected while InterRailing around Europe. I know.) My curly hair was slicked back with Brylcreem. Off I went, looking like Laura Ashleys long-lost daughter.
He was courteous, holding eye contact and answering all my inane questions with grace. (The best thing he ever got for free? A lifetimes supply of trainers.) I stood up and shook his hand, and he invited me to his afterparty. The next student journalist sat down and went straight in with a question about homophobic lyrics and issues of representation in pop music, and I thought, Ohhhh, thats what journalism is.
The evening took a strange turn. My friends and I crowded into a bar on the high street, where Dizzee had a roped-off section at the back. It didnt take him long to zone in on my gorgeous friend L, persuading her to leave with him. We were agog.
Twenty minutes later, she was back, laughing her head off at the way he had clumsily propositioned her. She chose us over him.
What do I see when I look at this picture? I feel embarrassed at my choices. But Im also glad I spent my 20s dressing like a weirdo: it demonstrates a self-confidence that I dont think I appreciated at the time. These days, you could still file most of my clothes under eclectic, but Im much more careful, uninventive even. Now I tend to wear only one necklace at a time.
My interview never appeared in the end; the other journalist broke the embargo (she went on to write for the Daily Mail: go figure). I was left with only this blurry picture, a reminder of my youthful enthusiasm for floral prints, and an uncanny impression of Dizzee Rascals best chat-up line.
Ruth Lewy is assistant editor of Guardian Weekend.
Nosheen Iqbal: Everyone else on the beach was 89% naked
Nosheen Iqbal in Tuscany, aged 21.
I was a skittish 21-year-old in the mid noughties and I had, against my will, ended up on a Tuscan beach. It was the height of summer, but I was wearing thick black tights, thicker black skirt, black scarf and witchy pumps . Everyone else was dressed in 89% naked and the entire beach was rammed. Id been sent on a work trip with four other journalists who were, as far as I was concerned, super-old (fortysomething) and, I hoped, probably willing to buy my stubborn refusal to strip as some cool youth thing. (They didnt.) I made an attempt to style it out by looking casually moody, staring out to sea behind sunglasses, pretending not to notice my shoes sinking in the sand, legs looking like inky black stumps.
Why dont you take off your tights?
No.
What about if
No.
A couple of key things: the seaside was not on my itinerary and I hadnt packed for it. I didnt (and dont) own swimwear or a bikini, and I didnt (and dont) know how to swim.
Being Muslim is barely an excuse to look as daft as I did; there are chic ways to be modest by the sea childhood memories of Karachis Clifton beach were proof, where lawn cotton tunic and trousers were everyones friend. But being Muslim, plus an average level of body dysmorphia, was my bikini body ready get-out card. I knew there had to be more comfortable ways to be in public than permanently sucking my stomach in wearing what is, essentially, waterproof underwear. But 100-denier hosiery was definitely not the answer.
The general advice to give a shy 21-year-old should always be, Its not as bad as you think, to allay their disproportionate embarrassment. Except, in this case, the cringe levels are fully warranted; I havent been to a hot, sunny beach since.
Nosheen Iqbal is a commissioning editor for G2.
Morwenna Ferrier: I cant remember why I decided to cut off my hair
Morwenna Ferrier in Aldeburgh in her early 20s.
Other outfits have been more challenging. The mother-of-pearl bustier I wore to my graduation, say. Or, recently, the T-shirt printed with Valerie Solanass Scum manifesto I wore to meet a friends baby. But the outfit I am wearing here, worn on a walk along Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk, is the one I most regret.
It started a few months earlier when, in my early 20s, I decided to cut off my hair. I cant remember why. I imagine I fancied a change and, in fairness, I liked it. But then, I looked like a boy in a dress. I reacted by phasing out dresses and instead wearing drainpipes, striped T-shirts and headscarves. None of this was good. In the photo, Im wearing tight cropped trousers under the dress.
I had spent my late teens in dresses, grungy or flowery, with self-cut hems. It was a more innocent time, when I didnt really care what I wore. But the haircut triggered an anxiety.
What is it I regret? Back then it was the haircut; now, its that I ever worried about looking like a boy. I clearly hadnt been paying attention in those Judith Butler seminars; maybe I was still too attached to the binary. As my hair grew out, I started to care for the first time about how I looked. At 24, late in life, I became self-conscious.
Morwenna Ferrier is the Guardians online fashion editor.
Pam Lucas: I looked like a turkey at Christmas
Pam Lucas at a family party, aged 39.
As a single parent in the 80s, I was dirt poor. I didnt have the opportunity to make fashion faux pas because I didnt have any money. We shopped in jumble sales, and we had fun.
My family was invited to a party to celebrate my aunt and uncles golden wedding anniversary. I didnt know them that well, but my mum wanted me to impress them by looking modern. In the 80s, that meant puffy sleeves and big shoulders. My mother came with me to buy the outfit from BHS , so I had to comply. I was 39 at the time.
It was a beautiful colour between purple and lilac but I didnt like the synthetic fabric. It was watermarked all over and had a flared, taffeta skirt and a little jacket with a peplum. I looked like a turkey at Christmas, but it was such a fab party, I soon forgot how uncomfortable I felt.
In a way the outfit is a testament to my relationship with my mother. I was a grownup, with a child of my own, but she was still trying to keep hold of the mum bit of herself.
Pam Lucas is a model and appears regularly in All Ages.
Tshepo Mokoena: I settled on a vague hippy child look
Tshepo Mokoena at 19.
It would be nice if we could start over. To spare me, and others my age, a fair bit of niggling shame, by wiping all early photos from our Facebook accounts. Anyone who set up a profile between 2004 and 2009 now lugs around the digital baggage of horrible pictures of misspent youth and terrible outfits.
Case in point: this delight of a photo. I was 19, killing time between the second and third years of uni in Brighton. In a few weeks, my housemate and I would set off on an impulsive charity volunteering trip to Kerala because and I still cringe wed watched Wes Andersons The Darjeeling Limited.
Until my early 20s, my aesthetic consisted of not knowing when to edit. At 18, I would layer at least three beaded necklaces, two chunky bracelets, about 17 bangles and seven rings, for no good reason.
I attended secondary school in Harare, Zimbabwe, largely insulated from fashion, more concerned with my whizzing hormones than the latest velour tracksuit. I settled on a vague hippy child look at 15 and filled my wardrobe with earthy prints, flared denim and jewellery picked up in local markets. By 19, I looked like a substitute art teacher.
If youre old enough to have only private, analogue photography from your youth, or young enough to have crafted a near-fictional version of yourself online, youre spared the permanent reminder of your mistakes: 1,287 grim images owned by Mark Zuckerberg. I implore other twentysomethings to join me in calling for a digital purge. Its time.
Tshepo Mokoena is the editor of Noisey.
Read more: http://bit.ly/2oSS1JN
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vdbstore-blog · 7 years
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New Post has been published on Vintage Designer Handbags Online | Vintage Preowned Chanel Luxury Designer Brands Bags & Accessories
New Post has been published on http://vintagedesignerhandbagsonline.com/not-so-haute-six-writers-on-their-biggest-fashion-mistakes/
Not so haute: six writers on their biggest fashion mistakes
Kenya Hunt ‘My version of day-to-night dressing was a night-time look worn all day’
Despite working at a fashion magazine, I’ve made a few sartorial mistakes. I comfort myself with the sentiment of an Instagram edict I saw: “If you’ve never looked a little dumb, you’re not having fun.”
I’d count the moment I met my husband as an off day, so it pains me no end that the clothes I wore have become a part of our marital lore. In his mind, the outfit is key to a story that must be retold, again and again: “She wore a shiny shirt, tight jeans, big, gold hoop earrings, tall boots and a giant white furry jacket. And I said, ‘I need to know this woman.’”
This visual loudness – the metallics, the big proportions, the shaggy texture – was my everyday look back in my late 20s, when I was living and working in New York. I dressed this way to please no one other than myself. I relished being able finally to buy and wear the labels I read about in magazines, but could never find in my suburban childhood home in Virginia.
My version of day-to-night dressing was basically a night-time look worn all day – ready for whatever fun might happen later. I’d think nothing of a morning commute in glittery Miu Miu heels or a gold Chloé sequin skirt. (To be fair, it was the era of high heels, flashy coats and skirts that were either very big and long, or very short.) No matter what the prevailing trend, I’ve always had a soft spot for the razzle. For further proof, see this old image of me in Milan, in bright colour and print, layered on top of more colour and print.
Now, my wardrobe stands on a foundation of grey, navy and black, mostly because it suits my lifestyle and the London weather. I limit the flamboyance to my accessories (a bright shoe, big earring, bold handbag) or show it through shape, such as an enormous puffer jacket. It’s just that now I choose pragmatic black rather than hot pink.
There’s a real joy that comes with loud dressing, because it requires a certain kind of go-to-hell spirit. I’ve come to indulge this in a more restrained way, but I don’t regret the mistakes. If I did, I’d have divorced my husband a long time ago, for telling that story so very, very often.
Ruth Lewy: ‘To think that this was my coolest look’
Ruth Lewy, aged 20, with Dizzee Rascal.
It was May 2006 and I was coming to the end of my first year of university. I had just received my first proper student journalism commission: an interview with Dizzee Rascal. I borrowed a Dictaphone and hastily scrawled down three pages of uninventive questions (“What is the best thing you’ve ever got for free?”).
Now the important bit: my look. I loved Dizzee; I knew his two albums back to front and had mastered all the words to Fix Up, Look Sharp. What was I going to wear?
To think, looking back, that this was my very best outfit. My coolest look. Not one floral print top but two, a T-shirt layered over a shirt. Not one necklace, but two. (Made with beads collected while InterRailing around Europe. I know.) My curly hair was slicked back with Brylcreem. Off I went, looking like Laura Ashley’s long-lost daughter.
He was courteous, holding eye contact and answering all my inane questions with grace. (The best thing he ever got for free? A lifetime’s supply of trainers.) I stood up and shook his hand, and he invited me to his afterparty. The next student journalist sat down and went straight in with a question about homophobic lyrics and issues of representation in pop music, and I thought, “Ohhhh, that’s what journalism is.”
The evening took a strange turn. My friends and I crowded into a bar on the high street, where Dizzee had a roped-off section at the back. It didn’t take him long to zone in on my gorgeous friend L, persuading her to leave with him. We were agog.
Twenty minutes later, she was back, laughing her head off at the way he had clumsily propositioned her. She chose us over him.
What do I see when I look at this picture? I feel embarrassed at my choices. But I’m also glad I spent my 20s dressing like a weirdo: it demonstrates a self-confidence that I don’t think I appreciated at the time. These days, you could still file most of my clothes under “eclectic”, but I’m much more careful, uninventive even. Now I tend to wear only one necklace at a time.
My interview never appeared in the end; the other journalist broke the embargo (she went on to write for the Daily Mail: go figure). I was left with only this blurry picture, a reminder of my youthful enthusiasm for floral prints, and an uncanny impression of Dizzee Rascal’s best chat-up line.
Ruth Lewy is assistant editor of Guardian Weekend.
Nosheen Iqbal: ‘Everyone else on the beach was 89% naked’
Nosheen Iqbal in Tuscany, aged 21.
I was a skittish 21-year-old in the mid noughties and I had, against my will, ended up on a Tuscan beach. It was the height of summer, but I was wearing thick black tights, thicker black skirt, black scarf and witchy pumps . Everyone else was dressed in 89% naked and the entire beach was rammed. I’d been sent on a work trip with four other journalists who were, as far as I was concerned, super-old (fortysomething) and, I hoped, probably willing to buy my stubborn refusal to strip as some cool youth thing. (They didn’t.) I made an attempt to style it out by looking casually moody, staring out to sea behind sunglasses, pretending not to notice my shoes sinking in the sand, legs looking like inky black stumps.
Why don’t you take off your tights?
No.
What about if…
No.
A couple of key things: the seaside was not on my itinerary and I hadn’t packed for it. I didn’t (and don’t) own swimwear or a bikini, and I didn’t (and don’t) know how to swim.
Being Muslim is barely an excuse to look as daft as I did; there are chic ways to be modest by the sea – childhood memories of Karachi’s Clifton beach were proof, where lawn cotton tunic and trousers were everyone’s friend. But being Muslim, plus an average level of body dysmorphia, was my “bikini body ready” get-out card. I knew there had to be more comfortable ways to be in public than permanently sucking my stomach in wearing what is, essentially, waterproof underwear. But 100-denier hosiery was definitely not the answer.
The general advice to give a shy 21-year-old should always be, “It’s not as bad as you think”, to allay their disproportionate embarrassment. Except, in this case, the cringe levels are fully warranted; I haven’t been to a hot, sunny beach since.
Nosheen Iqbal is a commissioning editor for G2.
Morwenna Ferrier: ‘I can’t remember why I decided to cut off my hair’
Morwenna Ferrier in Aldeburgh in her early 20s.
Other outfits have been more challenging. The mother-of-pearl bustier I wore to my graduation, say. Or, recently, the T-shirt printed with Valerie Solanas’s Scum manifesto I wore to meet a friend’s baby. But the outfit I am wearing here, worn on a walk along Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk, is the one I most regret.
It started a few months earlier when, in my early 20s, I decided to cut off my hair. I can’t remember why. I imagine I fancied a change and, in fairness, I liked it. But then, I looked like a boy in a dress. I reacted by phasing out dresses and instead wearing drainpipes, striped T-shirts and headscarves. None of this was good. In the photo, I’m wearing tight cropped trousers under the dress.
I had spent my late teens in dresses, grungy or flowery, with self-cut hems. It was a more innocent time, when I didn’t really care what I wore. But the haircut triggered an anxiety.
What is it I regret? Back then it was the haircut; now, it’s that I ever worried about looking like a boy. I clearly hadn’t been paying attention in those Judith Butler seminars; maybe I was still too attached to the binary. As my hair grew out, I started to care for the first time about how I looked. At 24, late in life, I became self-conscious.
Pam Lucas: ‘I looked like a turkey at Christmas’
Pam Lucas at a family party, aged 39.
As a single parent in the 80s, I was dirt poor. I didn’t have the opportunity to make fashion faux pas because I didn’t have any money. We shopped in jumble sales, and we had fun.
My family was invited to a party to celebrate my aunt and uncle’s golden wedding anniversary. I didn’t know them that well, but my mum wanted me to impress them by looking “modern”. In the 80s, that meant puffy sleeves and big shoulders. My mother came with me to buy the outfit from BHS , so I had to comply. I was 39 at the time.
It was a beautiful colour – between purple and lilac – but I didn’t like the synthetic fabric. It was watermarked all over and had a flared, taffeta skirt and a little jacket with a peplum. I looked like a turkey at Christmas, but it was such a fab party, I soon forgot how uncomfortable I felt.
In a way the outfit is a testament to my relationship with my mother. I was a grownup, with a child of my own, but she was still trying to keep hold of the mum bit of herself.
Tshepo Mokoena: ‘I settled on a vague hippy child look’
Tshepo Mokoena at 19.
It would be nice if we could start over. To spare me, and others my age, a fair bit of niggling shame, by wiping all early photos from our Facebook accounts. Anyone who set up a profile between 2004 and 2009 now lugs around the digital baggage of horrible pictures of misspent youth and terrible outfits.
Case in point: this delight of a photo. I was 19, killing time between the second and third years of uni in Brighton. In a few weeks, my housemate and I would set off on an impulsive charity volunteering trip to Kerala because – and I still cringe – we’d watched Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited.
Until my early 20s, my aesthetic consisted of not knowing when to edit. At 18, I would “layer” at least three beaded necklaces, two chunky bracelets, about 17 bangles and seven rings, for no good reason.
I attended secondary school in Harare, Zimbabwe, largely insulated from fashion, more concerned with my whizzing hormones than the latest velour tracksuit. I settled on a vague “hippy child” look at 15 and filled my wardrobe with earthy prints, flared denim and jewellery picked up in local markets. By 19, I looked like a substitute art teacher.
If you’re old enough to have only private, analogue photography from your youth, or young enough to have crafted a near-fictional version of yourself online, you’re spared the permanent reminder of your mistakes: 1,287 grim images owned by Mark Zuckerberg. I implore other twentysomethings to join me in calling for a digital purge. It’s time.
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