Behold, the trusty blazer, AKA fashion’s greatest fibster! It makes you look like you’ve got alllll your shizzle well and truly dizzled, even if you still can’t parallel park for sh*t. Or use chopsticks. Or hold a new born baby without hyperventilating.
The last time I wore a blazer it was a bright red military style number with buttons across the shoulders, think Cheryl Cole in her Fight For This Love video, only the Poundland version. I had teamed it with those f*cking awful tights that were doing the rounds circa 2010. You know the really bad ones that were made to look like suspenders. Yep, those. There’s only one thing worse than wearing suspenders as clothes and that’s wearing faux suspenders as clothes. Sick. In. My. Mouth. You people I call friends, where were you? Then again, I guess there is no easy way to tell a pal that they look like they should be rolling around on a bed with a cable phone, a leopard print throw and a hotdog.
As trauma would have it, I’ve obviously been so damaged by the whole experience that I haven’t looked at a blazer since, for fear I might awaken a deep, dark temptation to go back to my Chezza-cum-Babestation days (couldn’t have planned that preposition better if I tried). Once was already enough for a lifetime of revenge pictures to resurface at any point, let me tell you. Honestly, I think it would be worse than nudes.
So, all was going well in my anti-blazer world until, one afternoon I was swanning around H&M, ya know, stroking things and putting them back, as I do, and I saw this slinky blazer hanging there, all dark and mysterious. I thought no, nope, do not do it! What’s the point in even trying it on? I’m not serious enough for tailoring. And then I threw it on my back and suddenly I was like, Lareese – you don’t own a blazer ffs, you’re a 25.95 plus tax year old woman, you need to have a blazer if you’re gonna get a Pret coffee on the house and be taken seriously in this life. Then I looked in the mirror and kinda liked the way it convinced me that the woman standing there was a woman who could take on anything. Not the kind of woman who tries to blow out her lamp before bed. Candle drunk? I think so.
In the bag it went. I then forgot I had it for a good 2 weeks, then had the dilemma of what to wear with it because… hello, if I didn’t own a blazer until now I certainly didn’t own suit trousers to wear with it either. Oh Christ, it’s gonna have to be those sodding biker pants again – I’m just sick of loving them bastards and them not loving me back. 15 minutes of tugging the low rise hell out of them and I’m ready. I might have ripped the back pocket to reveal a small porthole of butt, just big enough to prove that I haven’t seen the sun in a long time, but I’m ready. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from buying those pants, it’s that the low rise life is not for me – it’s only reserved for the likes of J-Lo and Ciara, you know, the kind of girls that can grate a knob of ginger on their abs. I just look like a lumpy knob of ginger.
Then I looked in the mirror and kinda liked the way it convinced me that the woman standing there was a woman who could take on anything. Not the kind of woman who tries to blow out her lamp before bed.
Truth be told, I wish I’d blazed up sooner tbh. Like a pair of solid shoes or a good perfume, wearing something structured gave me a new air of confidence – a Cheryl Cole post Ashley-arsehole sass (if you wanna give it a label).
Naturally, I’m now rethinking my whole life and realising I need a style revamp. I want to cut my hair short and I want a leopard print jacket – you can take the girl outta Babestation!
I think the beret must have started something. Next time you see me, I’ll probably be wearing a dress made entirely of luncheon meat or duck spring rolls or something. Love you bye.
Photography by Olivia Foley
Blazer: H&M
Biker pants: Zara
Bag: Matalan
Shoes: Pretty Little Thing
