I have finally worked out why I hate shopping. It isn't the browsing, or the fact I cant decide what I want, or I don't know what suits me, or even cost (well it often is that, but I try to avoid Margaret Howell and Marni if at all possible). I have more or less worked out my style (although I do stray now and then if PMT kicks in) and enjoy the challenge of putting outfits together and combining new buys with old favourites. I prefer shopping alone and really cannot bear a whole day shopping with an indecisive friend who wants my advice. Maybe its years and years of trawling round shops all over the world, but within five minutes of entering a shop I have sniffed out what I want and will be heading for the changing room. This is where is it all goes horribly wrong.
I enter the changing room feeling optimistic, even a tiny bit excited. I thank God they are no longer those hideous huge communal affairs, even Top Shop now has individual cubicles. I am armed with a whole host of potential life enhancing garments and feeling good. I am hot, but not over heated and I start trying on the first garment.
First I pull on the slim leg, beautiful wool trousers and start to feel despondent. That's not how I imagined they would look! If I lob off the customary six inches from the bottom, they will be more of a peg leg shape than a cigarette leg and that is not what I want!
I move onto the 50's style dress, in my head I am seeing Anna Friel in Breakfast at Tiffany's, in the mirror I see Diana Doors in There's a girl in my soup'!
I step outside to get a better look and am met with a twenty something wearing the same dress. She is at least six feet of waif like gorgeousness and I retreat back into the safety of my cubicle, telling myself she clearly has an eating disorder!!
Next is the Helmut Lang/Yojhi Yammamoto esque cleverly cut top. That's bound to look good. I pull it on with some difficulty, as it has all sorts of sections and I'm not quite sure where they are supposed to go. I finally get it on and it looks ok. At last, something that doesn't make me look like either Eddie from Ad Fab or a textile lecturer!!
Ok, I'll have that, I think and begin to take it off. I pull and pull and seem to get myself entangled in the various designer layers. What the Hell is going on, I am now completely stuck and am having a small panic attack. I resist screaming 'someone help me, I am suffocating in a sea of wool jersey'!!
I poke my head (well my head wrapped in layers of black fabric) out of the cubicle and hope there is an assistant near by. 'Excuse me', I whisper, 'could someone help me, please.'
I make a mental note that from now on, I will always shop online!
