CHRISTENING DRESS
Another clothing crisis. What do you wear to the christening of your own baby when your instincts tend towards the sluttish?
I don’t think I can bear to buy something smart and appropriate because to my townie mind that means frumpish. My partner is obviously thinking along the same lines because he says he’s worried that I’ll show him up by displaying too much cleavage. I said I was worried about not being able to display enough and he laughed, nervously.
The problem is that if I get something grown-up and mummyish I know that on the morning of the christening I will throw it on the floor and shriek that I look old and ugly, and it will be too late to buy anything else. My response to fashion quandaries in the past has been the failsafe combination of tight trousers and slaggy top. But I see my partner’s point that the priest might not like this.
Yet it is so long since I looked up from the weekend whirl of baby-changing, house-cleaning and duck-feeding that I’ve forgotten how to follow anything remotely resembling a trend. So it was a shock to go on a shopping expedition to town and discover that Margo Leadbetter has become a high-street fashion goddess.
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Where have I been while all these Surbiton housewife wrap dresses took over the world? You can’t move for them in Topshop, in swirly Seventies patterns you wouldn’t line the cat’s basket with. But my friends said this was the perfect solution. So I tried some on, priced £40, and walked up and down in the changing rooms.
Mmm. The thing about these retro items is that they look cutesy and ironic on an 18-year-old but when you are hurtling into middle age they make you look like Valerie Singleton. Actually, make it Wendy Craig in Butterflies - without the choirboy hairdo.
Trouble is, there’s not much else around. Chiffony sleeveless jobs are fine for August but we are talking a freezing Saturday in February, and goosepimples don’t look nice on grey arm fat. The hippy and cowgirl looks beloved of Morgan and H&M are too Emma Bunton. Blouses with (uggh) pussy bows are just pure Desperate Housewife. And I can’t go down the road of a skirt and cardigan because I think cardigans are the devil’s work and do nothing for anybody, even Keira Knightley.
As is increasingly the case, I threw myself at the mercy of Zara. I went home and reported to my friends that, just as a standby, I had bought a cream linen trouser suit with, thrillingly, a slightly sluttish jacket for £78, but would continue the search next week. Yes, yes, they yawned, but what have you bought the baby to wear?
Do you know, that had quite slipped my mind...
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bargainhunter@thetimes.co.uk