F A S H I O N // When I'm a grown up...

When I’m older I want to be a 1205 woman. I can imagine it now, a wardrobe stuffed full of timeless utilitarian fashion. No stressing about ‘trends’, no “does this ugly pink thing go with these jeans?” Goodbye cheap polyester, hellooo high quality wool, mohair and Swiss cotton! Mmm perfect...

1205 is a unisex brand by Central Saint Martin’s grad Paula Gerbase. Successfully finding the balance between masculinity and femininity with a focus on traditional tailoring (Gerbase was head designer at Savile Row tailor Kilgour), but with an added sensitivity. I don’t think there’s one piece I don’t love in this collection, and cannot wait for the day I own a pair of those loose fitting trousers.

On a much less fashion related note though, is it strange that despite being a ‘proper grown up’ now I still refer to myself as though I were still ten?  It usually occurs when deciding what career I’d like, what clothes I’ll wear, the house I’ll live in. Everything is referred to as “when I grow up”, “when I’m older”, “when I’m an adult”. Will I still be saying this when I reach the age of forty? Probably. Technically I’m at an age where I can have my own home,  wear whatever the hell I want and my career? Well, I’m in the early stages so give me another ten years maybe…  In reality though no sane person on the planet would allow me to take out a mortgage which means goodbye dream house, and realistically I probably need my car more than I need those Céline shoes. So goodbye dream wardrobe.

But perhaps addressing my grown up self isn’t so strange after all. I imagine most people my age feel like this- particularly those of us who decided to do a degree. Despite us all being paupers and having society throwing unemployment and debt statistics at us from every angle, I’m so so relieved I chose this path rather than the path they’re all wishing we’d taken.

I look at the lives of some of the people I know or went to school with, and although they might be quite content with their two bed town house and new born babies, I can’t help but thank my lucky stars that’s not me. Giving up my twenties to raise a child and being tied to a house in a small godforsaken town makes me feel wrought with panic. I might not have a mortgage, I might not have a child and yes I might have £25,000 worth of debt (as my Dad never fails to remind me) but at least I feel I have at least a tiny bit of freedom (kinda). If I want to quit my job and travel the world I can (without having to drag a crying pooping baby with me), I don’t have to work a job I despise for the rest of my life  because I have bills to pay and mouths to feed. It might sound selfish to some, but I treasure the time I have to focus on myself  to continue studying, working and pushing myself so that one day I can have that dream house and afford to bring up children. Although ew, babies.

There’s so much negativity surrounding recent graduates at the moment and it’s driving me insane. It always surprises me the amount of people who didn’t go to university who’ve mocked me for studying and tell me that while they’ve saved for a house for the last three years I “probably won’t be moving out until I’m thirty”. Well great thank you but that life you think is so perfect isn’t for everyone.  You may think I’m poor and unstable but to me you sound boring and claustrophobic.  Even my doctor openly scoffed at me the other day when he found I’d studied fashion before promptly assuming I hadn’t  found a job in my field of study. He shut the hell up when I told him I was offered a job three days after graduating.

This post is probably going off topic a bit here, but I tend to rant a lot when people annoy me. Anyway, what I want to say is can you purrleasee for the love of God stop pitying us, mocking us and telling us we’re never going to get anywhere purely because we chose to  dedicate three/ four years of our lives to try and better ourselves.

Thank you bye.

Hannah