TREASURE HUNTING

Oh, what mixed emotions I'm experiencing these days, clearing out clothes from my deep and dark walk-in closet. It's been absolutely cluttered - still is in fact, even after I've filled four big plastic sacks. I decided to be totally unsentimental about this clearance, to ignore memories attached to the clothes. Are there memories attached to clothes, you may ask. The answer is YES.

Finding my favourite party dress from the end of the eighties / beginning of the nineties started off the emotional journey. The black-and-gold shiny V-shaped dress with huge shoulder pads used to do me favours again and again, complete with a leaping leopard brooch just below my left shoulder. Seeing it again almost brought tears to my eyes. But those tears were nothing compared to the hyperventilation caused by the claustrophobia and panic I experienced when I tried it on and got completely stuck in it! I simply couldn't get out of it! It reminded me of when I got stuck in a skirt in the Desigual shop in New York - one shoulder over and one shoulder under the waistband. Why do I put on a skirt that way, you may rightly ask. Well, I don't know. I never did learn how to dress properly.

After a hysterical struggle I finally managed to break out of the black-and-gold wonder - feeling much like Houdini I should think - and off it went, sorted into the plastic bag bound for the 2nd hand store. Perhaps someone else will feel comfortable in a tight vintage dress.

More emotional then, to find an old suitcase packed with clothes from the seventies! These were obviously clothes I've been very reluctant to throw away, and WOW! What a reunion I had with these babies! Forcing my daughter Sophie to try on my all-time favourite dress - bought on Kensington High Street in London September 1976 (who said clothes don't carry memories?) - she said: "Yes, Mum, I can see it was probably cool at the time, but I don't know.... it looks a bit like a Japanese style apron..." Ahhh no! - this was the dress I wore when one of my best-looking (and rich) dates whispered to me: "If I make one tug at this bow, will the whole dress come off?"

Can I actually get rid of this dress? I've been taking it out of the "2nd hand"-bag, putting it back, taking it out - oh, really! What did I just say about being unsentimental!?

Then - my lovely flowery Indian jackets, my royal blue raw silk dress from Monsoon in Brighton, worn a hundred times at least, I always felt well dressed in it! Still as beautiful and sober and straight with its high neck collar - I tried it on and it's so perfect.

But there's a time for everything.

I found one stain on the above top. I've only used it twice, so I put some stain remover on it and left it for thirty minutes. Okay, a bit curled up I'll admit. Obviously it didn't absorb the stain remover - or maybe that's exactly what it did - but as my husband said: "If you hadn't told me I'd have thought it was supposed to be like that." A bit batik-like?

I rediscovered some newer stuff hidden away at the back of the closet - this red-and-white jacket, hardly worn. Okay, okay, I might look as if I play for Manchester United (or not? Supporter then?), or as a friend said to me when I bumped into her this afternoon: "You're Danish today!" She's the Danish one actually, but I see her point.

Well. You don't really have to travel far for a treasure hunt. Your own closet will do.