Opinion

Anita Robinson: Can you fit into the clothes you wore at 21?

Anita Robinson
Anita Robinson Anita Robinson

DESPITE inexorably advancing age, fluctuating weight and a succession of replacement hip joints that have robbed me of two inches in height and put the kibosh on ever wearing high heels again, I’m still a dedicated follower of fashion – so I read with interest, and a fair degree of apprehension, an article entitled, ‘Can you fit into the clothes you wore at 21?’

The short answer is 'No', but that would leave this column several hundred words short, so I shall persevere.

Alas, the only means of keeping one’s figure in later life is a spartan diet and exercise, exercise and more exercise.

From adolescence, all forms of sport have been anathema to me. I work on the principle ‘if you’re no good at it, don’t do it’ – a rule I’ve adhered to in all aspects of my life.

In my defence, I never sat down when I was teaching, but I’ve rarely got up since I retired. Together the Loving Spouse and I grew plump with contentment, until he started worrying about himself and proposed a daily walk.

“Away you go,” I said. “It would mean a lot if you’d come with me,” he said. And so it transpired, in matching quilted jackets, me trailing sullenly in his wake and the wrong shoes. Friends hooted in derisory disbelief.

Hungry as hunters we’d return, he’d collapse in front of the telly while I prepared carbohydrate-laden dinners, instantly replacing the calories we’d used up pounding the roads. I lost not an ounce. Once the weather turned, we gave up.

Regular readers will know that I have kept most of my clothes from graduation onwards. For the purposes of research on your behalf, I ascended to the roof-space to test the hypothesis so forcefully put, viz. ‘Your waist size should be the same as when you were 21’.

Hah! For women, many factors militate against having a slim waist. These, in no particular order of blame, are the combined forces of larger portions, frequent snacking (cheese, chocolate, red wine, crisps, nuts), sedentary habits, idleness, having a baby and heredity – only some of which are optional.

Truth to tell, I was never really a size 10 for long, except brief periods of mourning broken romances or starvation dieting for a Big Occasion, but there was the green velvet maxi-dress I’d worn to a rugby club hop where a fight broke out and somebody bled on me.

Moving swiftly on… on another rail, one of my many errors of sartorial taste, the Joan Collins ‘Dynasty’ style two-piece, worn (of necessity) over an all-in-one industrial strength undergarment with a zip that malfunctioned in embarrassing circumstances.

Here’s a riotously-patterned flouncy Laura Ashley number that would’ve better served as bedroom curtains and a navy pinstriped wide-legged trouser suit that made me look like a Chicago gangster’s moll.

No mini-length garments survive, but in my first teaching post, I was called to the principal’s office to be reprimanded for the shortness of my skirts.

As an avid reader of fashion magazines, I note that style editors, anxious to manifest their ‘green’ credentials, brag about wearing their own ‘vintage’ garments to current designer shows. (Obviously, they still fit.) Apparently ‘retro’ is a big thing now.

Currently a size 14, I brought down an armful of my old 14s to try on. What a blow to the self-esteem. Technically they fit, but not flatteringly. It’s as if all my bones and bits have re-arranged themselves.

I’m the same size, but two inches shorter. As for a waist dimension, I don’t remember what it was at 21 and I don’t want to know what it is now.

The unpalatable truth is, weight loss starts from the top down, unless you’re a celebrity addicted to ‘tweakments’. After a certain age, you can have either your face or your figure. There’s no point in having model proportions topped by time-worn haggard features. That’s my theory anyhow.

Hold your shoulders back, your stomach in and cut the size label out of your clothes. G’won! Have another biscuit….