two ponytails & a stack of leaflets

A car park transformed into a temple for the vain and self obsessed.

This is probably any average Joes thought’s as they approach the centre of London Fashion Week, with the array of sunglasses on a grey day, noses stuck in the air, and cameras a plenty.

An eclectic mix of church Sunday best and homeless chic, as long as your outfit says something the cameras appreciate you, well that’s until some other fresh meat comes along (literally you could be head to toe in sausage).

Amongst all of this stood myself and Pip, two ponytails with a fuck load of leaflets and a dream. As you can imagine rejection was inevitable. Mrs pencil necklace wasn’t taking a piece of paper of anyone, “they’re Crayola darling”.

About 10 minutes in, we both had a breakdown, why were even at fashion week? It was a stupid idea and probably about time that we had an emotional affair with a burger and a shot of vodka.

At our very lowest moment, a lady looked at our leaflets and said “I agree with that, perfection is a c**t”.  Who’d thought such a word would change our day, maybe some people do agree with us. We needed to pluck up some courage and grow a pair.

So we started shouting out about perfection being arsehole, and the leaflets began flying out of our hands.

It appeared that many of the fashion week crowd agreed with us.

That got us thinking, here we were judging these people in their eccentric outfits, when actually the whole point is that this is the one place that they can be exactly who they want to be.

In everyday life these people are judged for wearing skyscraper heels and tinfoil.

London fashion week applauds that shit.

If you turn up with mom jeans and a load of leaflets, then yeah you will fade into the background like a beige bikini on a beach.

But if you turned up in the Vicki pollard-esque shell suit, that you bought once for a fancy dress party but secretly slip into every Sunday to dance around the kitchen, you will be respected.

So once we started shouting ‘perfection is an arsehole’, we were more us, and we gained more respect, because we were allowing the world to hear who we really are.

Of course there are those who swan around looking down at people, but if that’s the kind of person they want to be, who are we to judge them.

It’s all about celebrating the weird and wonderful. It’s in a car park for gods sake, the rest of society see it as a dull concrete eyesore, just a place to put their cars. For London Fashion week it’s the glorious temple that it wants to become.

We both left wanting a bit of London Fashion Week in our lives everyday, we all need to learn to be comfortable being who want to be. 

words - liberty

photos - pip jay