NOT NARNIA...

As careful (slightly compulsively so) as I am, my favourite clothes always get destroyed. I feel like saying "yes, I already got the lesson, I understand, karma gods or whoever". It's the only way I can explain it. I have a pair of shoes I love, someone spills red wine on them; I wear my new Miu Miu trousers to a party, my boyfriend at the time decides it would be hilarious to push me into a hedge (true, I swear) and they're ripped to pieces. (Along with my dignity and relationship obviously.) I fork out to get my beloved Marni bag specialist cleaned, it gets destroyed. And now: I no longer have the archive of clothes and shoes I had been storing for over ten years, mostly stuff designers gave me in lieu of payment in the days when I'd happily answer the phone/pick up pins/mail show invitations in return for bus fare and an outfit from the new collection. It was, I thought, my pension fund. Or if I ever felt like completing the 53 life steps necessary to end up having daughters I could pass some of it on to them. Hey, I could even give it to a museum, I thought grandly.

I opened what used to be my wardrobe at what used to be my parents' house and started to take things out. Where exactly they were going to live from now on I wasn't sure yet, but I'd been told. Nothing of mine could remain. Unlike the wardrobe in Narnia it did not smell of mothballs. Upon further investigation it became apparent that the door of the room and wardrobe had been closed, as well as the windows and the heating switched off. For five years. That environment provides the perfect growing conditions for MOULD.
Every piece of clothing and all the shoes were covered inside and out with white, furry mould. Strangely it wiped off most of the clothes leaving only a faint mark that will hopefully come out with dry cleaning. All the shoes, I'll say that again, ALL THE SHOES had to be thrown in the dustbin. Mould loves leather; especially Prada apparently.

I ended up with about twenty pieces saved and a dry cleaning bill for sixty quid. I still don't know where these pieces will live, but since I don't collect stamps, or porcelain figurines, or African masks I will store them somewhere ventilated until I have a non shoebox sized (the irony!) flat with a spare room where they can live. At the moment my living room looks like I just moved in again and I'm in the process of throwing out more stuff from here, actually stuff I like and wanted to keep, to make room for the stuff from there, which I never imagined I would be expected to house at this stage of my life. Like my mother's wedding dress and/or every single thing related to either me, my mother or my mother's side of the family. I know you're thinking STORAGE FACILITY but people have offered to help, and it's amazing who rallies round when they see you need it.