Where is the mainstream going?

I felt like my youth had been robbed last night when The Special's Ghost Town was played on Strictly Come Dancing. The Specials used on Strictly! And don't get me started on #frankiefieldmicehair singing The Clash on X Factor.

Those were the days when only really young people listened to Radio One or hung out in record shops of a Saturday afternoon. Now, even I still listen to it occasionally though I have put Radio 2 on twice in the last week when driving. Then to compound it all I got an ASOS fashion mag/catalogue which looked like something I used to throw together minus the ads of course when I was young and hand out to people. I really used to pull a magazine together and hand them out to complete strangers. A couple of friends used to help me and ok we stapled it together, it wasn't bound but we didn't care. Now I do nothing that is invention and pure indulgence, apart from my writing.

Not that I would ever have labelled myself as street but I've always been pioneering and moving forward. One of my biggest bug bearers is when someone says of an item of fashion 'Oh I couldn't wear that I wore it first time around'. Nothing is the same, it is always a pastiche, a reinvention. I saw two looks in the ASOS catalogue which I wore in the 80s with joy and guess what I want to wear those sport looks I loved then again. The first time round I wore a sporty tee with a tight midi bandage skirt and metallic ankle socks and trainer. Plus I has a long red mohairish jumper which I wore with tight leggings or stripy or lurex tights. I keep pushing to the back of my mind the hideous purple dungaree jumpsuit thing I bought in Kensington market and wore quite a lot for one summer., however it never put me off re-embracing the jumpsuit thing again, it gave me hindsight on best of bunch choices!

images from ASOS catalogue 

It is funny how the most mundane everyday issue of a piece of post can cause you to reflect on so much. For goodness sake it was only an ASOS fashion mag as catalogue, a big marketing ploy not a fanzine style mag produce in your bedroom and a garage.

But I suddenly felt I needed some of that old vibe in my life and given I've no money and can't buy the items to give me that injection of fun and frivolity I'm not entirely sure what to do next. I think the pursuit of grown up glamour has polarised how we dress into classic, edgy, street and glamorous but really is that fair? Don't women get put into so many boxes anyway - mother, 'career' woman, bitch and baker. Gosh I'm tired of it all. I want to be liberated of all these constraints.

Even my wearing of a blue wig on Saturday night for a Halloween party felt like a breath of fresh air!

 Even my blue wig gave a me a go crazy licence. I did drink too much and maybe that sambuca shot was not a good idea but at the time...


After all the ASOS mag thing was dull in the sense it followed the format of celeb on cover, celeb modelling clothes, a facile interview -  the usual. And that is what is irking me everything seems mainstream these days even tattoos. Even the Occupy events are like a roll out of a brand # + occupy + location. It is as if everything has a pattern, a blue print.

I feel a garage magazine coming on again! I need to go back to my roots (I'm even thinking of changing those from my natural blonde to brunette & blue!).

What would you like to see in a magazine? What angle or take on fashion is missing? What would you change to the current fashion magazine formats? And could someone tell some people that tweeting about dressing up in x, y and z or buying x, y and z is hardly living on the edge. This blue wig is going walk all over my mainstream life and shake it all up!