No. 23: Forget to Get Dressed Properly

Despite previous posts about how much time flancers spend on topshop.com rather than working, barely any of them ever dress themselves properly. Today for example, I am wearing striped pyjama bottoms two-sizes too big, some pink ballet pumps over chunky walking socks, a checked, long-sleeved shirt and a turquoise print scarf (the heating isn’t on yet).  I last washed my hair when we had a Conservative government and if you asked me when I last brushed it, you could go and make yourself a souffle whilst I try to remember.

For most flancers, their daily ‘commute’ consists of: bed to coffee machine to desk.  Therefore, dressing like you’ve covered yourself in glue and sprinted though a charity shop’s ‘To Be Sorted’ pile is commonplace.  I regularly scare postmen requiring a signature, unexpected visitors and myself - if I happen to stumble near a mirror.  In short – the flancer’s work wardrobe is the sort of thing that would have Jeff Banks waking in the night screaming and gnashing his teeth.

The other day, a friend called me up for coffee. So desperate was I to go outside where other human beings are,  I turned off my laptop, put on a coat and unthinkingly left the house. Halfway through coffee I looked down at myself. I realised I had simply gone through the morning’s non-dressing ritual as per, which is fine for my living room/work space but very not-fine for a vaguely respectable - and more importantly, public – area. 

As it happened,  I was wearing (a) no bra, (b) my pyjama top and a cardi which I had slept in (c) no socks and (d) jeans that had been on the floor of my room longer than the rug.  I could also smell something wierd, which in retrospect was probably my hair.  On the plus side, looking this bad means people regularly offer to pay for your coffee. On the minus side, people pull their children away in horror and intimate relationships rapidly degenerate when for the third time that month your partner sees you in your ‘work clothes’ and assume you have a drink problem.

One final note: I watched The September Issue the other night which is about U.S. Vogue Dragon Queen, Anna Wintour.  I imagined her working from home in thermals, flip flops and a Hello Kitty nightie with soup stains on it and it made me like her so much more.