Good taste never goes out of fashion

Jul 11 2008 by Valerie Hill, Liverpool Daily Post

NOSTALGIA isn’t what it used to be, as the saying goes. And as Beatles Day came and went, passing me by in an insipid haze, I muse on what it is that makes us linger longer over lost decades.

The music on this occasion, certainly, but isn’t it always with us? Omnipresent if you’re around Albert Dock and seemingly filling 50% of our local radio stations’ output.

If you live in Liverpool, you can’t escape the Fab Four, but surely other things have hit the pop scene since 1963?

It’s the same with fashion. No sooner have we seen the demise of drainpipe trousers and the birth of the bootcut, then we have the re-appearance of skinny jeans followed quickly by flares (again).

They say that, if you’re old enough to remember a fashion item first time round, then you’re too old to wear it when it gets its second wind – not something my mother adheres to with her bustle.

Being a fashionista from an early age (I insisted on Pucci print nappies), I can just about recall maxi-dresses at the end of the sixties, which are now, of course, the garment of the moment for summer.

Floaty, floral frocks are the WAG dress of choice, giving elegance, height and grace to anyone who is short, stumpy and clompy. They also remove the need for constant leg waxing in the summer months. For that we give much thanks.

So, having designed a maxi-dress for Valerie Singleton in a “Val’s Clothes Competition” in 1970, and won a special “competition” prize rather than a full-blown Blue Peter Badge for my efforts, should I venture forth in a full-blown flowing number for a trip to Tesco?

Would it be a trifle OTT for the supermarket? Would I catch the hem on passing trolleys? And, if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, would I be asked to donate my muslin cheesecloth in a deli-counter emergency?

I confess I have busted the memory rule and have bought a couple of long frocks for my hols. Wearing something hippy-dippy when you’re abroad doesn’t really count. It gives you a kind of sartorial diplomatic immunity.

Naturally, I tried them on and had a prance up and down the hall. I feel like a little girl dressing up. All I need are a pair of those plastic high heels with covered elastic straps which appeared in every 1960s newsagents’ window to make the look complete.

Never mind about feeling old, I feel completely juvenile again.

Rather than clothes piling on the years, it’s clocking other people around you. As I watched the men’s Wimbledon singles final and saw the camera focus on Roger Federer’s parents, I realised with horror they looked the same age as me.

Worse was to come. When I saw Rafael Nadal’s mum and dad, they actually looked younger than myself and my husband.

Still, at least none of us were tempted to bring out that other 70s throwback item, the sporting head-band a la Rosie Casals or Bjorn Borg.