What was formerly a closeted existence, etc...

If I was blessed with the gift of knowing how to use the digital camera I haven’t actually got (a situation that makes this musing is about as hypothetical as musings get), I would have treated you all to an exhibition entitled ‘Images from Inside My Wardrobe: Before and After’. It may not have been as news or cashworthy an exercise as Tracey Emin’s ‘Bed’ turned out to be, but before I launched myself into a major deconstruction on the whole assemblage, there were definitely elements that may have captured Charles Saatchi’s imagination.

Exhibit One: the lurid purple nylon top - easy to mistake for a tacky curtain - that was brought in the Dublin branch of Primark for two quid the day before I heard that Thumper the lizard king was gasping his last breaths, too far away for me to be by his side.

Exhibit Two: an empty Dasani mineral water bottle, as clutched before being glugged in a state of extreme panic at a Canadian airport, years ago.

Exhibit Three: the £79 leather’n’suede country’n’western style boots with stack heels that look like they were made from compressed balsa wood and no visible differential between the left and right boot. No wonder I only wore them once…but then again, at least I gave them a good outing: Paris, two years ago, when we’d rented a quirky, dirty courtyard apartment from a fashion student who left when we arrived without doing her dishes or changing the bed sheets on a bed that was fashioned from fruit pallets and decaying slabs of stained foam. I don’t know what possessed me to buy the boots in the first place, but I do know that I’ll never, ever buy anything from Fat Face in Bath again (or return to that flat).

Exhibit Four: the dusty Birkenstock ripoffs, their leather uppers now brittle with neglect and vitamin D deficiency. Only a hint of their cork and rubber soles are in evidence today and it’s hard to tell if the uppers were ever once navy blue or dark purple, but in their glory days those sandals shuffled along pavements from Hollywood to Toronto, via Liverpool, Portsmouth and the Roskilde Festival.

Exhibit Five: Mike’s best suit - actually, Mike’s only suit; ah, that’s where it was hiding all these years!

Also: several tasteless, unflattering minidresses made from really weird, lurid patterned fabrics; dozens of dusty, badly-cut black cotton/cotton mix (yuk) shirts in various styles, barely worn; a pair of box fresh, cream suede trainers, in a carrier bag with their price tag attached and a receipt that tells me I bought them in Sole Trader for the reduced price of £14.99 over three years ago; the same amount of cobwebs, dust balls and dead spiders that one would expect to find in an ancient garden shed; loads of gorgeous frocks, ethereal tops (including one that looks like it was spun from pure gold) and flouncy skirts, the existence of which I was vaguely aware of but I’d given up all hope of ever seeing again years ago.

Notes: before I embarked on this wardrobe blitz, my past was, quite literally, stopping me from moving into the future - a future such as last night, when it took me five seconds to find the right combination of t-shirt, slouchy pants and sandals to wear for an impromptu trip to the canal (see tomorrow’s post). There was a time - a very recent time - when I’d have ended up wearing Mike’s gym clothes for such a trip because the very thought of opening my wardrobe to find something of my own to wear was just too, too stressful. Not any more. So, the Dorothy House shop will have five bin bags worth of treasure donated to them tomorrow and today, I will be mostly wearing a purple skirt, a brand new white t-shirt (which I’ve had for four years) and gold sandals that haven’t seen the light of day since those horrific FF boots were slung on top of them, years ago. Later on this afternoon, I’m going to launch a similar coup on my underwear drawer; Tracey Emin should be very, very afraid.