Never, never share, those beautiful things you love to wear.

My hat is splendid. Crafted in soft turquoise felt, adorned simply with a coal black band of ribbon and finished with a fawn and speckled feather.
It’s a sartorial statement of vintage glamour and the romantic femininity of fashion’s past.
I’m a beautiful eccentric and a mysterious stranger as I hide behind its wide brim.
Funny then... that I should only have worn it once.

I didn’t always want to be different. Like everyone else I collected childhood memories of painful self consciousness and passed my early years as a devout follower of sameness and wore clothes that were stamped with peer approval.
Twenty years later and my identity has moved on, I listen with glee as I collect accolades from friends for choosing clothes that look a bit different, I snub those fashion conformists that dress to a formula of perfection and choose my style with wild spontaneity because that suits me.
I’m glad I leave people guessing when they try and buy me gifts. I see my style wriggling on a pin, as people try and observe what it is." There’s no such thing as a perfect jumper and I don’t want the trousers everyone else has".
My favourite clothes are those items I have picked with thought and delicate intention.I invite them into my wardrobe and there they remain barely worn colourful strangers yet the truest expressions of who I am. Freud would you like to see my wardrobe?
I wish I could wear them more often but find myself conditioned to believe that there has to be a special occasion or purpose to look different. Magnificence in the form of beauty scares the ordinary person next to you and distances the solidarity we have that comes from sharing common tastes and wearing common clothes we can all afford.
For most of the time I dress appropriately, yet I couldn’t feel more like a whore to conformity or less like me.
"Did you know I can fly?" sings the birds trapped in the cage.
I know what people think when they look at you or me, it’s your purpose to look ordinary and a privilege to look extraordinary. “You cant dress like that up here” warns a cautious friend as I fail to assimilate my bohemian South of England style with the typical northern norms of Yorkshire dressing; the nauseous neon dresses worn by over tanned garishly made up messes.

Today as I step outside under the shadow of my turquoise brim, I’m the bird that’s spreading its wings with fashionable swoops , and soaring above those that stare and those that are self conscious enough to care and notice me and my hat.