EMMA JOHNSON
SO, on Tuesday it came, the anniversary no-one wanted – Britain’s year of lockdown.
The worst year in living memory for many. The pedantic would argue it hasn’t strictly been a year of lockdown, there were periods of respite, but for the last 12 months our lives have been governed by endless rounds of restrictions, with everything from hugging our relatives to spontaneous shopping trips snatched from us at a moment’s notice.
My brain struggles to compute that a whole year has passed since Boris grounded us all that Monday night last spring. In the period since, time has become so elastic that his edict could well have been just a few days ago.
Looking at the PM himself, you’d think the crisis had been going on much longer. In his address this week, he appeared more dishevelled than ever and several years older than he did when he was elected just a few months before coronavirus reached our shores.
Given the lack of milestones, my own year is best measured in the things I have bought. These have included a lot of house plants, bedding and candles but as this is a fashion column, I’ll stick to my wardrobe.
And it is safe to say that even if the Government’s roadmap out of this ends up leading nowhere, I probably don’t need to buy another sweatshirt ever again.
Before all this started, I am not sure I had ever uttered the term loungewear.
Less than a fortnight of working from home and I was suddenly desperate for hoodies, leggings and jogging pants. So was the rest of the world, judging by the stock levels online.
Two months in and I had devoured enough magazine articles to be convinced I needed ‘house shoes’ – formerly known as slippers, should be wearing statement earrings for Zoom meetings, almost invested in a cashmere tracksuit and splurged more on a pair of pyjamas than I normally would on an outfit for a wedding. In fairness, they are the best PJs I have ever owned. I would probably have gone out in them, had we been allowed to.
When the shops did open for that brief, bright period last summer, I was itching to go to actual stores, only to discover that retail therapy is not quite so therapeutic when you can’t try anything on or have a boozy lunch mid-shop.
Then, during this last lockdown, with no plans in the diary and brick and mortar shops once again closed, something very odd happened to me. The buying buzz wore off.
However, my shopping sobriety was not destined to last. With garden get togethers, al fresco lunches and park picnics again in sight, I am rifling through the virtual rails most evenings in search of tea dresses, sandals, wedges and spring jackets.
Well, a girl’s got to look the part, hasn’t she?
Anyone in the market for a pre-loved sweatshirt or two?
Side hustle: Anya Taylor-Joy
In rather more lighthearted news, TikTok, the social media platform beloved by Generation Z – those born from the mid-late 90s and onwards – has been making headlines again.
The video sharing site holds little appeal for me, I waste enough time watching #catsofinstagram clips, but it seems Gen Z have been using it to tell Millennials (25 to 40) how to dress, talk and even what emojis they can use.
Gen X-ers, like myself (aged 41-56), and those older, are not worthy of their attention, by all accounts.
The latest issue to catch their ire is side partings in hair. Gen Z’s argument is that no-one looks better with a side part than they do with a middle part.
I can’t believe I am relaying this nonsense, while the world is still in the grip of a pandemic, but life goes on, and so, it seems, does online tyranny, so side partings have been ‘cancelled’ along with skinny jeans, the laugh-crying emoji and Piers Morgan.
They clearly didn’t see this stunning image of The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy, 24, at the recent Golden Globes
Check and indeed mate to the side parting, I think.