These are 1940s boots from Harrods. I bought them a good while ago from a vintage seller who has sold me several lovely things over the years.

What better to wear with striped Edwardian combinations? To get my silly little maple-sea-salt-oat-milk-latte? What on EARTH could be better? 

I get dressed twice a week, tops. The rest of the time it’s gym stuff or pyjamas, so Mondays and Fridays I do me best.

Even though I keep lists of outfit ideas and snap pictures of things that work together, I nearly always make something up on the day. Often, I’ll pick up one thing and be like ‘THIS. This is who I am today.’

My dressing room is currently living its best life. It’s typically a far-away, cold and damp room with identity issues, waiting to be the spare room it is for only a fraction of the year.

But it occurred to me recently that this is actually MY space. Space is at a premium in this hovel and I’m not using my goddamned space!

So, I covered the ugly storage shelves with pink and red-striped fabric. I used my manic idea energy to shift the bed frames (they take 10 minutes to put back! Why am I living in wait???). I repurposed one of said bed frames as a handy accessories rack. The damp is, for now, in retreat.

And so – I Get Dressed. A sacred practice, connecting me with who I am today and letting me be creative even as I’m working in insurance during an economic downturn and it’s raining.