Fashion Victim: There’s no summer loving with my clothes

May 15 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

SO SUMMER is here at last. Or at least it is for the time being. And, if you are anything like me, you have not got a thing to wear.

I have quite literally gone to the wardrobe and the wardrobe is bare.

All right, it’s not really. I know that in there somewhere are all manner of sundresses, vests, camisoles, shorts and skirts picked up over the last decade, worn once (if they are lucky) and then pushed to the back of the closet.

So why is it then, after a mere one day of sunshine, that I found myself running round like the proverbial chicken last week trying to re-stock my summer wardrobe?

Why did I queue up for 3½ weeks (OK, slight exaggeration) in Primark to try on enough tea dresses to clothe all the women of West Derby, then tear around Oasis, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, Topshop, H&M and everything River Island had to offer, left, for two hours solid because I absolutely had to have a new summer jacket/new shorts/light-coloured kickflare jeans/a white cardigan/a new bikini/ a kaftan/ sunglasses/cork wedges and a maxidress.

Obviously, I didn’t actually need any of these things, at least not in the way plants need water.

No, there is just something about the sunshine that sends otherwise right-thinking women like myself into a state where we feel we cannot step foot outside unless we have something new to wear?

I have given a name to my pain – and it is summer panic.

It is summer panic that will make me buy at least three pairs of el cheapo sunglasses before I go to Ibiza – wayfarers, aviators and the de rigueur Jackie Os.

It is summer panic that will make me buy at least one sun dress that is two sizes too big for me, simply because it is a bargain, then promise myself that I will get it taken in but never do. And it is summer panic that will tell me that I absolutely do need yet another pair of ballet flats.

Summer panic is more prevalent than summer colds, and worst of all it has a sister strain – beach panic.

An altogether more dangerous beast, it is beach panic that tells you that you need a bikini for every day of your holiday, that you need jewellery for sunbathing in, that you must buy a stetson/ straw hat / 70s- style headscarf for by the pool, bejewelled flip-flops and waterproof make-up – naturally.

And you don’t need me to tell you that it is beach panic that convinces you to St Tropez yourself all over, even though you are the sort of woman who is completely incapable of putting on eyeliner, never mind getting your entire body to precisely the same shade of caramel brown.

Strangely enough, there is not a winter variant to this seasonal affliction.

There is no winter panic that makes you want to run out and stock up on a million black sweaters. The only panic you get some wintertime is when the summer credit card bills come rolling in.