spruced by marlene

There are perhaps more relaxing things a person can do between Christmas and New Year’s than going shopping in London.

Because going shopping in London between Christmas and New Year’s will make you fear for your life. Because you have forgotten, since your last visit to London, just how insanely busy the Tube is. No, sorry: How INSANE the Tube is. You have also forgotten that half the city and a million tourists are all trying to get to the same place you are: Oxford Circus for the Sales. Which means that in the 15 minutes it will take you to get from the exit of the station to Topshop, you will either get run over by: a) a mother with a buggy used to transport her Primark purchases b) five teenagers in Ugg boots or c) a doubledecker bus. You will sustain serious leg injuries from people swinging their shopping bags repeatedly against your knees. You will eventually make it to Topshop only to realise: The best of the Sales has already sold out. You will buy something – anything! – anyway. Because you’re here, aren’t you? Which means that you will spend half an hour in the queue for the tills waiting to pay for something that you will likely never wear. And then you will go to the next shop where it will be the same thing all over again.

However. There’s no better place to people watch than Topshop (as my friend Aaron pointed out as we were queueing for the tills…). And there are no better people to watch than Londoners. I love how unafraid they are of fashion and seeing what a kick they get out of dressing up. The Indie boys with their complicated haircuts. The pretty girls in their big fake furs. Seeing them was a good reminder to make one of my New Year’s resolution this year: be a little braver than would be expected of a person with a wardrobe filled with black, grey and navy clothes. The first step: wear this pair of heels more often without thinking about how impractical they are. And instead think about how great it feels to wear them.

They are from Rupert Sanderson. Who is, after all, from London.

May 2011 be a year dressed in leopard print.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!