I’ve got it on, your favor­ite tee, it never looked as good on you as it looks on me

(Ex-army shirt from milit­ary surplus store a very long time ago, dark denim skirt from Oasis last year, black tights who knows, shoes from Dr Martens 3 years ago. Neck­lace made by Mika Hallor. Hair in desper­ate need of a hair­cut. Swollen ster­oid face free by the NHS)

“I thought we had an under­stand­ing there
That wouldn’t leave too soon
Figure it over and you’ll find out where
Your green shirt’s gone”

Talk­ing of 90s reviv­al, I real­ised that the clothes I was wear­ing yester­day were some­thing I could easily have been wear­ing 20 years ago. This isn’t the actu­al shirt I had as a teen­ager (that one, like all of them, inex­plic­ably had a German flag on the arm), but it’s pretty much the same. I got this one from an army surplus store at some point in my 20s for £4, but by mistake they gave me two, so it essen­tially cost me £2. I recently saw some identic­al shirts in Topshop for about £40. Some­times it pays to be a loser who never throws anything away. Until about five years ago I actu­ally did have a top I’d been wear­ing since the early 90s. It was a burgundy and black ribbed thing that seemed to be made of near-indes­truct­ible mater­i­al.

A lot of blog­gers make slightly shady money by taking photos of them­selves in clothes that are currently in stores (often sent as a free sample by the manu­fac­turer), and then using a special track­ing link that gives them commis­sion for every click and purchase. Distaste­ful hyper-capit­al­ist ethics of turn­ing your life into a walk­ing advert aside, I would be hope­less at that. Most of my stuff is second hand or home-made, and I hang on to clothes I like forever if they still fit and are in good condi­tion (I’m pretty ruth­less at giving unworn things to char­ity shops though). A couple of times a year I go on a big (unpleas­ant and stress­ful) shop­ping trip and stock up on basic things like jeans from chain stores (ok mostly Muji or Topshop to be honest), and that’s kind of it. Prob­ably by the time I’d notice a trend it would be on its way out.

Talk­ing of army surplus cloth­ing in my youth, when I was a teen­ager I also had one of those army jump­ers with the fabric covered shoulders. Almost every­one else I knew did as well. Oh yeah, I also had one of those canvas army bags that I used as a school bag. That was also the thing. Why did I even both­er going to other shops? (Not that there is much selec­tion in my homet­own, it’s a decrep­it ship­build­ing town that went into a massive decline in the 80s). They clearly had everything I needed in the local army surplus shop.

I was a small kid in all respects except height, and I also had a long-sleeved Nirvana tshirt that was like a comfort­ing tent that was one of my favour­ite things. They also had those in Topshop recently. Mine came from a local hippy shop, and came with a free long-last­ing scent of joss sticks- Topshop don’t provide that service.

I had some very simil­ar school shoes to these in the 90s, except in black rather than burgundy. My feet stopped grow­ing when I was 12, so I wore the same pair until I’d almost finished school, and was also happy to wear them outside school, which is not some­thing you can say about most shoes accep­ted by Brit­ish schools. Yester­day was the first day in months I’d worn tights, and it felt really weird.

The easi­est place to take a photo was in the hall­way where my bike was. I’m proud of my crappy £40 bike. There’s very little to go wrong on it and it annoys seri­ous cyclists. I had to use my 24mm wide angle lens instead of the 40mm portrait lens I’d prefer because I just didn’t have space to move the camera further back. I also had to sit on the bike to fit into the photo. Although I look short, I’m actu­ally 5ft8 in my socks. Taking photos of your­self with a remote control is hard, because you have no real-time idea what the pictures look like. I don’t know how all those blog­gers who constantly take self-timer photos of them­selves smil­ing do it. At the best of times I only have a few expres­sions for photos, includ­ing Gorm­less, I Will Fight You and What’s That Smell?. I didn’t really enjoy trying to take the photos (esp with my current allergy-ridden hamster face), but I did enjoy faking up a medi­um format film look on Photoshop, to make it look more like a 90s magazine.

Here is a clos­eup of the neck­lace. Mika the design­er is a friend of a friend who lives in Sweden. I bought two of his acryl­ic neck­laces a while back (the other is the “I’d rather drown” pennant), and I’ve found the feath­er one has become a favour­ite that I wear more than any other item of jewellery.

Here’s anoth­er Lemon­heads song, for no real reas­on.