Four weddings and a fashion fail…

I’m going to a wedding this week. No, not mine.

I’m not a dress girl, more of a permanently in jeans and a t-shirt girl, but obviously I’m having to smarten up.
It’s just a big old faff isn’t it? Dresses and shoes and all that malarkey. So much so that best-friend-Cal is coming shopping with me tomorrow to find something like a pashmina or a wrap that I can drape elegantly over my shoulders because I can’t wear my coat, dear god no. Coat is red, dress is green.
(Red and green should ne’er be seen, except on the dress of a fairy queen. Far be it from me to compete with imaginary beings.)

In addition to the elegant drapery, I may need different shoes. I also need hold-up stockings. Possibly another bag. Some kind of hair accessory. Oh, that reminds me, got to dye my hair. I must also buy a new mineral foundation after the last one dropped down the toilet following a fairly hilarious juggling scene. Hang on, which lip gloss should I wear?

This is not me. In everyday life I can throw my jeans on, some kind of geeky, cheeky or humourous t-shirt that lets everyone know I’m a cheeky humourous geek, put a little mascara on, and away I go. I don’t go in for primping myself endlessly to impress the community at large. Want to know why?

Because I always get it so spectacularly wrong.

I have a set of those rather fancy hair straighteners, you know the ones I mean. I cannot count the number of times I’ve almost cooked my earlobes by getting my silver hoops caught in said straighteners, as I’ve attempted to give the ends of my hair a cheeky ‘hello boys’ flick. Silver conducts heat terribly well, this I know.

Then there’s make-up. We have a tenuous relationship at best. I hold my hands up and admit I wore the same appalling iced pink shit everyone else did in the 80s, but this practice seems to have ruined me for all future make-up.

I wore so much back then, that I only tend to wear a bit of powder, mascara and lip BALM, not gloss. Anything more than that and I cross the point of no return, go overboard with it all, and end up looking like a pantomime Widow Twankey.

It’s like some 1980s demon takes over and encourages me to layer my face until it’s unrecognisable as my own. “Go on, use more black eyeliner! No! Not underneath the lash line, draw right on it so it makes your eyes look nice and small!”

The irony of all this is, I have a subscription to a certain glossy fashion magazine, and will usually buy 2 or 3 others during the month. I absolutely love reading about fashion and the latest cult make-up products (skincare is my particular heroin), but that’s all. I don’t necessarily want to buy every pair of shoes I see or put 7 different kinds of highlighter on my face, I just like looking at the people who do.

I like peering into that glamorous world were no-one is as clumsy as me, and everything is achingly elegant and dramatic, a world I admire and detest at the same time. Maybe it’s because I’m lazy you might say. Maybe I am, but I’m only going to be here once and when the day comes for me to leave, I’d rather my last thoughts weren’t of how many hours I wasted waxing my brow strays, sandpapering my arse, or picking out the right cut of jeans for my eye colour.

No. I want to think of all the fun stuff I was out doing with the people I love.
“Remember the time when we went to The Ritz for tea?”
“Oh yeah! It was great! But the thing I remember most of all is that your hair and make-up was a fucking disgrace that day.”
“Cheers.”

– Chrissy

Flickr image from Patrick_Q’s photostream.