Monday, August 20, 2012

Our marital hootenany

Here is a picture of page 43 in Grazia this week. Owls. Owls everywhere. Owls in fashion. Owls on T shirts, owls on Kate Bosworth, owl earrings and owl belts. Twit twoo, you might think, that’s a nice T shirt. Going to get me one of those. Not I. I am not happy.

Usually I’m delighted to be accidentally in fashion. A pair of wedges I bought in Clarks recently were featured in Bella magazine a few weeks later, on their ‘this week we’re loving...’ page. Women who buy shoes in Clarks don’t usually expect to be labelled fashionable. I was delighted to be accidentally fashionable and immediately tweeted my fashionable friends to show off that my shoes were on a fashion page and I was bang on trend.

But this is different. I did not accidentally follow fashion, fashion accidentally followed me and I need to put a stop to it, pronto. How do you put a stop to fashion? Do I call Vicky Beckham? Ask her to do me a quick fave and under absolutely no circumstances be seen in an owl jumper?

It’s all Gareth’s fault. He started it, by liking owls - actual owls, not owl jumpers and owl earrings. Actual living owls. He can reel off a list of owls that are native to the British Isles, he’s intrigued by their faces and fascinated by their hunting prowess, the design of their feathers and that they fly silently. He likes the fact the collective noun for a bunch of owls is a parliament of owls and that they have three eyelids per eye, one for blinking, one for sleeping and one for keeping the eye clean and healthy.

All very well. Gaz liked owls and banging on about owl facts (see above). I liked buying him presents, so when I saw a little furry owl in the gift shop of an owl sanctuary we went to, I bought it for him, so he could put it in our little bonsai tree and pretend he had the actual owl he so longed to own. Slowly, friends and family got wind of his adoration and he / we were given so much owl paraphernalia that things started to get a bit silly - you could sit on our sofa and without even moving your head, ratchet up double figures of the amount of owl crap you could see in our living room. I thought it was fun - it’s not like it was cats we were into (crazy old ladies are into cats. A cool young hip couple like us had found a totes unusual animal to obsess over) I didn’t really share G’s appreciation of what made actual owls so great, but I did like hunting for obscure little owl titbits for the flat. In fact my hunting prowess would have made an owl proud, hur hur.


Then we got engaged. As wedding plans developed, we thought it would be hilarious, ironic and unusual to have an owl themed wedding - stopping short of having an actual owl deliver the rings, because we don’t like our owls to be kept in captivity with a chain on their ankle.

We made this decision, this owl themed wedding decision, a year ago. Long before the owl fashion erupted. Twelve MONTHS before Grazia suggested you spend £795 on an owl jumper. (That’s one month's rent. On a jumper.) Three hundred and sixty five DAYS before Grazia told it’s 500,000 readers that £195 spent on an owl scarf was a really good investment.

At first I just thought it was rather convenient that I had been able to get a few owly things in Accessorize over the last few months. Now there has been an explosion of all things owl and I realise I have been feeding in to the very fashion craze I didn't want to happen.

Thanks Grazia. Now we look like we’re doing whatever you tell us, but tenfold, because we’re not just buying your jumpers, we’re decorating our entire wedding to your gospel word. We’re going to look like crazy fashion mad Grazia groupies who have no control of our fashion urges. Owls are in, you say? Right, get me a million of them, I’m going to decorate my wedding with so many owls you’ll be eating mice for main course and growing extra eyelids by the first dance.

For the record, our wedding may be airing six weeks after Grazia told you to like owls, but we started the trend, alright? And only because G really likes real, actual, wild owls.

Bloody fashion, coming along and making me look fashionable, right when I most don’t want to be. Where were you, fashion, when I really needed you? When I was at school and all the cool kids were wearing Levi’s and Dr. Martens and I was wearing my t-shirts inside out and my dresses back to front?

I’m just stating, for the record, that I really like wombats. There, I’ve said it. It’s out there. Look out, Autumn / Winter 2013, you’ve got wombat mania coming. And I’ll be leading the fashion pack with my wombat jumper and my wombat earrings.

(Something tells me this won’t take off. The wombat silhouette looks a bit like a poo.)




2 comments:

Lucy said...

Love this post. I hate it when you wear something thats unfashionable and it becomes fashionable like tie die for instance. Now it's in pretty much every store in brick lane. I really like llamas and now tesco's are making llama bites. Also I really like frogs just in case this takes off too.

Kim Willis said...

Thanks Lucy! Yes, it is very frustrating to be thrust into the mainstream. I have no idea what llama bites are, are they food made from llamas?

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