there's more to wearing clothes than the High Street.

MEANWHILE LAST THURSDAY 'jesus christ natalie, there's no point to me anymore. give me an excuse to get out of here.'
just before the line went dead she'd been juggling her outsized hangbag on her arm, a clutching a dinky phone in one hand, with superfluous hangers hooked on the other, her chipped pink fingertips clasped the metal like a fleshy clothesrail.
'fuckfuckfuckfuck'
is not what they wanted her to be grumbling as she passed through the store. this is like some girl i'm jealous of's huge walk-in wardrobe.
scanning the shop floor for natalie absent-mindedly, no signal on crummy mobile, she realises that if she needed some professional advice or directions to this in black please or whatever then she'd have to look damn hard for a trained employee. in seasons passed and gone those elusive frock peddlers even been actively encouraged to customise their shop-issue tops however they please. like the fashion students they want to be.
the whole experience, then, shuffling between the racks and shelves and mannequins, next to similarly-laden similar-looking W1 working girls, smacks of mind-numbing conformity. (gawd). when you descend the escalator the latest arrivals are waiting to greet you *cotton fresh*
this evening it takes all of the duration of the descent (20-30 seconds) to the ground floor for her to realise that she must have the red polka dot pink strappless cotton prom-ish dress hanging prone on display. and at thirty quid it's so off the peg and on her used-to-it body.
'as long as i'm in here, i don't exist. i don't exist.'
she found natalie in a queue waiting to pay for a pair of magenta mesh knickers.
'let's go.'

i don't need you:
www.tops.co.uk