Sunday 23 August 2009

In Real Life

Yesterday a friend of my mum's was visiting from Paris and I went with them to Harrods, which as everyone knows is the top shopping spot for tourists who are over 25 and therefore too old for Topshop. Had a lovely time wandering around looking at the bags (dear God, some of those Valentinos were literally to die for) before fleeing the luxury rooms in fear of the beady eyes of the assistants, who pounce on you if you stop walking even for a second and ask you if they can help, with a faux-sincere smile that scarcely disguises the venomous 'clear off right now, you clearly don't have the money to buy that £1000000000 Chanel bag you're currently going into ecstasies over' thoughts which you can see in their beautifully made-up eyes. Right, scary sale assistants, I'll just go to the food halls now and kill myself over exquisitely made chocolates which cost £3 per 10g and therefore are out of my price range (query-does anyone actually buy all their food from Harrods?).

So anyway, after a little afternoon tea the Mutti and I trundled along to Harvey Nicks so she could buy some skin product she wanted, and then we had a little look at all the clothes while we were there because, you know, we might as well. Luckily the sales assistants at H.N. seem to actually be normal people, in that they lean against things and talk to each other instead of picking on poor innocent shoppers. So I could look around and touch things without feeling like a trespasser. It was a rather enlightening experience, even if we were only there for about a tenth of the time I would have liked. Despite the fact that I live in London and subsist on a diet of glossy magazines, my exposure to designer clothes has been limited to photos on glossy paper. My wander through the womenswear floors had a dual effect-on one hand, being able to manhandle Givenchy/Dior/insert other top-end designer brand here made me realise that despite all the prestige attached to these brands, they are just clothes, albeit clothes of exceptional cut and quality; that made me feel just a bit more hopeful, like, maybe one day I'll get to wear nice clothes like these...On the other hand I realised that brands like The Row and Marc by Marc Jacobs, which I have always thought of as being younger, less serious ones are in fact much more sort of high-brow than I expected. So that was kind of daunting! But all in all it was great to look at lovely clothes for once-I mean, I love love love Topshop, but there's only so much polyester a girl can take.

Then we took the bus home in the late afternoon sunshine. I can't believe the summer's nearly over-it's been such a great one, and I feel like it should go on forever. Enjoy this last week, people-it'll be over before you know it!

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