Walking The Dog

Anyone who knows me, or has read my blog posts before and has a feel for who I am, will look at that title and shake their head in disbelief, for I am no follower of fashion - unless it's the fashion of the gardener or dog-walker: slightly dishevelled, crumpled round the edges, wearing fraying jeans, shirts with no discernible remnant of shape, wellies and a little mud (on a good day ... a lot of mud, on every other day). But look carefully. For what I wrote was not 'follower of' fashion but 'respect for' fashion. I respect fashion. Not - as will be obvious to everyone - in the sense of acquisition and adornment of myself. For a start, I am short and un-fashionably rounded at the edges; soft and squishy and good for cuddling, I have been told. But in the artistic sense. I appreciate the artistic beauty of (most) fashion. And the industry and craft that prop up the big fashion houses. I am not referring to the near slavery that underpins and undermines the chea...

Littlest, wearing a classically draped dress (think Roman statue and generous folds of cloth), commented that her small frame didn't fill the dress, hence the draped effect and that this was due to her perimeter being somewhat less than the perimeter of the (modestly framed) friend who leant her the dress. "Perimeter?" I queried. "You mean circumference? Perimeter is usually used to describe the edge of something vast, like a sports's field." "Ye-e-es ..." she pondered, not really concentrating. But in not concentrating, she insulted her friend (who is most definitely not vast) and forced my brain to momentarily juggle 'perimeters' - bra size? Dress size? Waist? Hips? Chalked dead-body-on-the-floor outline? Height? Of course, she meant dress size. The dress she had borrowed was a size 8. Littlest barely fills age-appropriate dresses and could probably fit her perimeter into some age 8 clothes. Which got me thinking - the age at which...