Fashion
The new year is almost upon us (well, the end of term is anyway) and we think that now is the time for a good old clear out. Purge your wardrobes of the trash, expel offending items and treat yourselves: a new year should be a new start after all. Here are our candidates for the dreaded room 101, and remember there is no going back.
Black trousers are generally acknowledged to be a wardrobe staple, yet why is beyond us. They are ubiquitous and with it boring, boring, boring. Nothing screams frumpy, mumsy chic more than a pair of bootleg, nylon, scratchy black trousers. They smack of a lack of imagination and a lack of care, and coupled with an unenviable desire to blend in, you could say a wearer looks tragic.
Also belonging to the frumpy chic school of dress and often seen, as the finishing touch to those horrid black trousers, is another very deserving candidate for the room 101. Credit card sized bags could be considered the reason that New Look exists, its sole purpose to proliferate such offending items. Not only are they absolutely pointless, but how can anyone justify the hassle of carrying something around when it barely holds a few measly possessions, that could easily be accommodated in your pockets?
Handbags are meant to comfort, to reassure and to carry the armour with which you make your assault on the world, so how are they going to do that when they make your credit cards seem gigantic? Surely they are just annoying and uncomfortable to deal with. Practicality aside, they look ridiculous, there's a complete lack of balance and proportion to them and yes, your hands do look big alongside them.
The next candidate for Room 101 is often considered to epitomise practicality, albeit it at the very high price of sexiness.
Tights are just damn annoying. Silky satin-sheen pairs can make your legs look like heaven and you like a possible relation of Gisele. However this does not excuse the fact that they are constantly falling down, causing you to ruin your ladylike demure as you hitch them up - and the issue of ladders that results in a new pair having to be bought at least every fortnight is just too much to bear.
It also seems that we have a particular aversion to clothes that are favoured, shall we say, by those of a more mature inclination. Leather or PVC trousers have been a favourite with the wrong kind of school-run mums since time began. In their minds they say: "I'm still young, a bit wild and daring, and I'm not past it", but in our opinion they warrant the ultimate cringe factor.
Just imagine your mother in a pair and it becomes horrendous: they are worse than a badly timed essay crisis on a cheesy Park End Wednesday. And for all those who are deluded, they are just not sexy!
The feel and the look are not good. Teaming such atrocious leg clothing with a tie-up blouse and bum bag is unthinkable, unless of course you're trying to look horrid.
The oldies just can't get it right, but embrace old age and we may as well put you into room 101 too. Paisley skirts and tops in pastel shades are hardly the buy of the century, especially when it comes to style. Come on, the patterns lack lustre; they are uninspiring and unanimated. If you want to stand out from the crowd, avoid pastel paisley at all costs!
Long, lifeless denim skirts that appear to do nothing but engulf the individual also fall into this category. Something that just hangs, making you look as wide as you are long is not going to cut the mustard with us.
Now for something embraced and loved by teenagers all over the world: slogan T-shirts are as deserving of Room 101 as their pastel paisley antithesis. If you have an opinion or a particular persuasion, use it, say it, wear it on your sleeve metaphorically don't inflict it on us, we really don't need to know that you're 'single if he's cute', or that 'your boyfriend is out of town', it just hurts our eyes to see. In the same vein, are those awful string vests, beloved by 13-year-olds in a sugary pink and tragic on anyone with GCSEs.
What exactly do you think you're trying to achieve, Rastafarian pretensions? We think not, they just look silly!
18th Nov 2004