We’ve all been there. After leaving home fast, and a quick glance at the hallway mirror to confirm, my feelings were completely normal. I felt ready to take on the world. . . Bam!
In the bright winter sunlight, we notice our black jacket is looking a bit… shiny. On the front, our white shirt is now stained with pasta. At certain pressure points, our opaque black tights are a little bald.
Then we see our silhouette through a shop window. What we had thought was slightly Carrie Bradshaw — mannish jacket, big skirt, on-trend cowboy boots — suddenly looks more bag lady. We spy the perfect outfit on a mannequin in Reiss/Whistles/M&S and we know we have to have it. Now.
The shop is a tense place. We walk in sheepishly and then we hit the phone box/changing area to get our numbers. After that, we pray silently to God for the bank god, enter four digits, say a prayer, and finally emerge looking like Superman. You are instantly transformed and you feel so happy, except for all the old clothes you now need to carry around. But still. But we’re still young.
Heather Mills, 53 years old, fell prey to an urge for pick-me up shopping in Chelsea. Pictured: Heather before replacing her sweater dress with a white maxi outfit while Christmas shopping
Heather Mills was just like this earlier in the week. She was 53 years old and wandered aimlessly through Chelsea. Although she looked fine, truthfully, her lips were stained by toothpaste.
She didn’t even have mad bedhead hair. We wear Uggs and slippers, but she was comfortable in good footwear. She was actually wearing the sweater dress, one of the most hated garments in all of human history. It sounds OK on paper, promises to ‘take you anywhere’ while being ‘warm and cosy’, but the truth is it soon sags and bags.
The shape of your face will be reflected in the fabric, and it will stay put.
Heather could have been married with a Beatle. But she soon realized, likely after looking at Joseph in the shop window, that she was mortal. She succumbed in to the temptation of a quick fix of fashion, and she emerged like a butterfly all fresh and new, box-fresh, and wearing a white dress (for this season?). maxi dress.
You can grab-and-go fashion that you buy on-the-spot and wear immediately. It’s like pasting a plaster on your soul. Fashion shops have been designed to charm us. We are seduced by the videos and billboards of young, beautiful women romping.
This is what we think we will be like. The Gap sweater won’t shrink and bobble, it will take us skiing in a winter wonderland.
I won’t just have a new outfit, I will have a new life in a George Michael video. As soon as we finger a price tag, a pretty assistant is poised to pounce, telling us how much it will suit us, even though it’s a size six and we overdosed on turkey.
The hanger is lifted and we are spoiled. We justify the price in our head: it’s only twice the one in John Lewis and I will wear it all the time, and who needs to eat in January? It’s my right.
The adrenaline as we wait for the little machine to say ‘Approved’. Careful handing of the rigid carrier bag. No ‘I’m just looking, thanks’ for us! We’ve arrived! We are here!
Liz Jones admitted that she’s made many impulse purchases. Pictured: Heather after replacing her sweater dress with a white maxi outfit while Christmas shopping
I’ve had it happen to me numerous times. While I waited to board the Heathrow flight to Turkey, an expensive and necessary pick-me up was the norm. The PR accompanied the designer and guided me in small groups of fashion editors. They were all perfectly dressed and well booted. Connolly iPad cases brand new. Vuitton scarfs and travel accessories. Prada jackets, and other unidentifiable floy items.
Me? My jeans were in Jeans. I was wearing a jacket by Dries Van Noten, but it had been chewed by my collie, which I noticed only once I got in the taxi. I also had two pairs of biker boots that Baker and Fiorentini had given me years ago.
Bikers are tall enough and comfortable enough to navigate the many miles of pathways to the departure gate. A gaggle of Gucci-clad fashion writers, clacking in high heels with their heels, is a sight that can lower endorphins faster than any other.
I imagined they were all live-Instagramming me as we mwah-mwah’d, and so I made my excuses and headed to the nearest first aid station: Jimmy Choo.
A pair of stiletto boots in knee height was what I saw. I swapped my bikers for a pointy pair that cost £900 and would surely require the services of the little airport buggy usually reserved for the old and infirm, and reappeared, transformed, as Wonder Woman.
Liz (pictured) said she spent £900 on boots from Jimmy Choo while waiting to board a plane to Turkey at Heathrow accompanied by a small group of fashion editors
The only fly in the ointment was the sales assistant, who hurried after me with my discarded bikers, holding them at arm’s length.
She was relieved of the items and I deposited them in a nearby bin. Then, Dick Emery fashion, I stumbled towards my small group. ‘Hang on!’ I heard a security guard yelling. ‘You threw these away. We can’t have large items in bins.’
I soon discovered, once in Istanbul, that a ‘pick-me-up purchase’ — what used to be called an impulse buy or, in the language of husbands, ‘utter madness’ — is something we haven’t thought through properly. I’d forgotten Istanbul is full of mosques which, on our first day, we were escorted around to give us something to do. As footwear isn’t allowed, at the portal of each one it took three nice men to wrestle the boots off me, then later to act as props as I put them on again. My Wellington boots with holes at my toe were a hit with the fashion crowd.
Heather Mills, no matter how box-fresh she may appear, is not advised to rush for blood near the till.
No matter how charming the doorman is or what the champagne flutes are, boutiques do not constitute the fourth line of emergency services.
When my Havaiana flip-flops broke while running to conduct an interview with a film star, the nearest shop was Marks & Spencer, not lauded for its footwear. I walked out with the worst of things: the ballet pumps.
Liz (pictured) revealed she once spent £3,000 on a Jil Sander cashmere duster coat on her way to a post-Oscars party
Film star did not take ballet slippers journalist seriously. They rolled up like long-dead spiders and never darkened my feet once I took them off.
Another impulse purchase? A £700 Dolce blouse from shopping complex Corso Como in Milan as I had, moments before, had my head turned by the catwalk show (I’m not even a ‘blouse’ kind of person); I think my discarded M&S white shirt is still stuffed behind a radiator. A £3,000 Jil Sander cashmere duster coat (it’s not even lined!), bought from Barneys in LA as I was on my way to the post-Oscars party having just glimpsed my upper arms — I was in a slip dress — reflected in the pool of the Mondrian hotel.
Stella McCartney’s plant-based Stella wallet, to use on my Swiss press trip, when I realized that my small group included a journalist from another newspaper, who could out me. A vegan for boasting about a leather Smythson cardholder which was given as a gift.
A £350 black Stella T-shirt with embellished neckline from Browns on London’s South Molton Street bought to impress a man I never clapped eyes on again and who had probably never heard of her.
The Jimmy Choos were resold on eBay by me, naturally. Shopping is my favorite method these days. I love to see clothes on the runway, and then go shopping in stores or online. I look at them for hours, until they are either out of stock, no longer in my size or out of fashion. It is the most environmentally-friendly and cost-friendly method to shop.