KATHY LETTE
Fashion goes in one era and out the other. If only I’d kept my flares, crochet bikinis, boob tubes, highwaisted jeans, ponchos and platform shoes… because one glance at our high streets reveals that the 70s and 80s are making a comeback.
Even the perm is back on fashionistas’ noggins. According to many of London’s most exclusive hair salons, the new perms cost from about £200 and come in several variations, from the Braid, which mimics the effect of hair that’s dried in a plait, to big, bouncy styles that enable you to impersonate Brian May or Carole King on karaoke night.
It’s tempting, isn’t it? The perm was so easy. No blow-dries or hot rollers… but it can go so hideously wrong. When I flick through old photo albums, it looks as if I’ve sutured my pubic hair to my cranium or stuck a finger into a power socket.
And my perm was just the crowning glory of many fashion faux pas. Honestly, I’ve seen better-dressed salads. I was a fashion victim – literally; on many occasions my choices nearly killed me. Vertiginous platform heels regularly sent me toppling face first into the guacamole at parties. Even more dangerous were bellbottoms. Once, a sudden gust whipped the right flare around my left leg and lassoed me. I fell forward and lay floundering on the pavement like a denim mermaid.
The crochet bikinis I wore as a surfie girl were even more lethal, because it’s physically impossible that four teeny triangles can cover anything bigger than a freckle. The health impact of this ‘costume drama’ was a cricked neck from constantly glancing downwards (string bikini pants give ‘bad hair day’ a whole new meaning). Plus, as soon as you dived in, the crochet waterlogged and dragged you straight to the seabed.
The kind of ponchos we wore as hippies are also back in vogue. In my opinion, only two types of people look good in a fringed poncho – six-year-old girls or nomads tending their yaks.
