BACK TO THE 90's
The year was 1997. I was in my first year of university. High heels, Botox and shellac nails weren’t part of my universe in any way, not just because I was a penniless student whose skin hadn’t been ravaged yet by stress, laptops and too many hangovers, but because no-one did any of those things back then. I wore parachute-material pants and shell tops (maybe a fetching cowl neck if I was going out at night), straightened my dyed black hair with an iron (as in, an actual iron) and wore two-toned Royal Elastics sneakers around the clock. Makeup was mascara and nothing else. Earlier in the decade I was all about slip dresses and Doc Martens – as Courtney Love as someone could be outside of a Hole video. They key was never trying too hard; comfort was king. It was almost lockdown leisurewear, decades before any of us knew what a lockdown even was.
Looking back on the ’90s, there’s no question that it was a simpler time. You didn’t have anyone to compare yourself to on Instagram. You could buy a house and feel like you had at least a fighting chance of paying it off) was an event that you knew you had to do at 8.30pm on Tuesday or you’d miss it entirely, and you never knew how those photos of your friend’s 18th would turn out until you got them back from the chemist a week later. Instead of spending every spare second face-first in a phone – reading angry, polarised people yelling blindly for their team’s side on the news topic of the day – I used to take a coffee out to the rooftop outside my above-shop flat and listen to cheerful house music. I remember it being annoying that no-one could get hold of me unless I was at home next to my landline. But also … how good it was that no-one could get hold of me unless I was at home next to my landline.
