it's official, too old for topshop

I visited Topshop for a wee browse and came away feeling somewhat nostalgic, and of the view I may finally be too old to continue to shop there. Despite years spent dressing inappropriately for my age and any situation.

I was greeted by neon, aztec prints, double belts, bat wing tops, tube skirts, floral prints, strapless dresses, pastels, acid wash (even and acid wash full length play suit) and the ultimate mistake of my teens: white fringed, studded cowboy boots! I could harp on about the laziness of it all really. Isn't this supposed to be one of the cutting edge hip design meccas of the earth? Designers? Pah! What do they know these days? After all it is not a reference to the 80s, but a facsimile of it. They even play the sound track of my youth while flogging me the fashions.

But halt all cynicism. New is new if it hasn't been seen or done by the individual before and to this crop of tweens it is all the first time. And perhaps in this era of technology and credit crunch the 80s represent a time when things seemed to be more fun, clashing, colourful and experimental. They most certainly were for me. It is hard to imagine that as a teenager I had no internet, SKY, mobile phones (we wrote letters and used phone boxes!!!) and that fashion didn't move at speed the speed it does now. Although maybe the crunch will slow things down a bit? And when all is said and done, in the 80s, in small town NZ I wanted to be nowhere other than London. So this retrospection allows me two things: the wisdom of knowing that much of this stuff looks terrible and worse with hindsight - weren't the 80s the "decade that taste forgot" until very recently? And secondly, now I can be in London listening to the Cure in my pixie boots and double belt... they're playing next week.

Perhaps more somber times will bring on the 90s - utility, minimalism and black. Then I could flog my wardrobe on eBay.