The Age of Innocence

Clothing from: Cambridge Satchel Company, Orla Kiely& Topshop

I am a believer in looking to the future, the past has been and gone and all that’s left is there to learn from, to grow and develop. Memories of fear, happiness, sadness, excitement, anger, flood people’s minds, walking down the street you’d rarely stop and think about what the elderly man waiting in the cold at the bus stop has been through.

I am still young, making my way through my Twenties curiously and conscious of the changes since my teenage years, with more clarity. Responsibility surges through my veins stronger than it has ever done, lucid understandings of right and wrong and a wise levelheadedness that I wholly welcome.

I am a thinker and during my late teens, I would spend every waking second contemplating. I silently questioned everything; things that didn’t require heavy inquisition and things that made me need Descartes and Aristotle on hand to help me out. One such thing would go over and over in my mind quite often, as I lay in bed, blinds up and any light doused, I would watch the stars searching for answers in the infinite of night. How do you become an adult? I didn’t mean it in the sense of what Herculean tasks I needed to complete to make this transition but more, when would I know it’s happened and will I notice. I kind of believed it would slip by without detection in the same way that on your birthday you don’t feel any different to how you felt yesterday but I was wrong. This, I have slowly discovered as it has unveiled itself to me in the days that pass.

I can see the changes and the growth in my maturity and have been awakened. As a believer in the future, I have never seen the appeal in wishing to return to being younger and being at school. I’d much prefer to think about what I want next, yet, my wardrobe has started mushrooming into something resembling, what I imagine to be, Anne of Famous Fives fame or Able Seaman of the Swallow, Titty Walker’s. Childish, with a mischievous want for adventure between lingering thoughts of girlish delights is how I’d describe it. Lusting after anything attached to a Peter Pan Collar or just simply any collar, wax jackets or raincoats for the characters in the children’s books who love to splash about in puddles much to their mothers dismay, initialed satchels (Thanks to Alexa, Tennessee & Zooey) along with every other little thing you’d find on such petite creatures. Mary Jane flats with socks, mid length skirts and cosy knit jumpers. The joining of practicality with the pretty, presents me with a situation I never saw myself facing, the situation where I want to return to childhood. When I started my meaningful love affair with fashion quite early in life I never wanted to be a girly girl, which makes sense as to why I do now. Braving a new chapter in my life, finally entering adulthood and despite facing it head on, I’m wistfully reaching out for the idyllic salad days of a young girl. It is now deemed by the universe at my tender of age of twenty two, unacceptable and irresponsible for me to be acting like I am six years old so I find solace in looking like one. With the likes of Alexa and Zooey, initialed satchels in hand, fronting the campaign, I know it can’t be wrong especially as I am happy to know my teenage curiosities have been answered.

So, despite greeting maturity with a warm, delighted hospitality, it appears to have brought a girlish acquaintance along, to celebrate but have no fear, everyone’s invited. 

Image via Philo-Sofia