Her own Instagram, @dstdesigns, is an impeccably chic smorgasbord of influences from right across the decades, noughties included, much of it bought secondhand via charity shops and eBay. The trick, she says, is knowing how to pick styles that can go the distance in your wardrobe. “What we decide to leave in the past is usually dictated by design. Good design is timeless and usually stylish, regardless of fashion – whether it’s an Eames chair or a pair of Air Jordans.”
Even as a sustainability advocate, I admit, I still love tracing fashion’s fluctuating patterns – putting a finger in the air to sense the wind change, feeling the mood shift and the invisible cogs crank another shape of jeans or hem length around the great Lazy Susan of fashion once more. But we all need to be prepared to sit a few more ‘must-haves’ out if we’re ever going to get a handle on our wild overconsumption.
And while I make peace with no longer having a spot at the kids’ table, there’s another feeling creeping in too: relief. Because it is a blessed relief, to no longer feel obliged to participate in every trend that gets dredged up, batted around for a season or two and then binned until the next generation of Jenners and Hadids give them an airing.
It’s only really now, watching the parade of corset tops and handkerchief hems roll across social media, that I realise how much of my identity used to be tethered to the exhausting business of remaining on-trend. Along the way, somewhere between sciatica and home contents insurance, that has changed. This time round I’m delighted not to be an insecure adolescent, crying in the loos to the muffled thump of So Solid Crew, but a bonafide grown-up who has been there, done that and doesn’t need a Punkyfish t-shirt.
