The Velvet Underground

Well. That’s it, I

suppose. Halloween (that newly significant ‘holiday’) is behind us, there’s a whiff of arnica in the streets as people nurse their trick-or-treating injuries, and to complete the American hell-scape, Christmas may now commence.

Obviously, this is an unmitigated disaster, but I’m not about to give out about how ’tis earlier it’s getting every year and ‘have you seen the price of a Freddo now’?

No, I’ve given up raging against the machine. I recognise that the likes of me are only jealous of the people who haven’t learned yet that Christmas is horrifying. And anyway, I’ve found my silver lining: velvet.

Today I will enact the solemn ceremony of releasing the winter velvet from the McWilliam sailing bag under the bed, where it lies like a deflated Liberace for the 10 months of the year when it is socially verboten.

For the next eight weeks we all have carte

blanche to dress like old European nobility. I like to take full advantage of this bad-taste festivus and drape myself, a walking sensory nightmare, in cheap velvet, sequins and polysatin. Waft into Centra like Princess Diana in the arms of John Travolta and try to feel sad. You cannot.

My personal favourite for a dressed-down Friday to remember? Slutty Margaret Thatcher on her wedding-day realness: blue velvet, a cheeky matching muff (for hands).

It’s not about how velvet makes you look: it’s how it makes you feel. Cared for; warm. Like every day is your very first birthday party. And how it feels: you’ll spend your day stroking yourself; you’ll find other people stroking you too. In the midst of early festive aggression, it’s incredibly calming.

Conceding to festive style softens seasonal misanthropy; no one minds a Scrooge who looks like they belong on top of a Victorian Christmas Tree. This is it, I suppose. Halloween is behind us, feck it: Merry Christmas. Have a hug. I’m soft.