Fashion and I

Some blogs I have been reading of late talked about fashion sense and the lack thereof. So I thought of including my two cents worth on the subject.
My earliest memories of 'fashion' are of trying on my mother's old, discarded pair of stillettoes and trying to walk in them. My sister and I had come across them in an old cupboard full of shoes and I was fascinated by them. My mom had long since 'graduated' to more sombre footwear but tell a child of less than ten that she cannot walk in high heels and she will more than try to prove you wrontg! However there were no long lasting side effects of this endeavor.
Most of my childhood my sister and I were dressed by our mother and her no-nonsense style meant that we sported clean, fitting clothes and short easy-to-manage hair.
Perhaps the next most momorable phase was the black and grey phase. Of course these were always coupled with jeans (As an aside: denim is the material that jeans are made of. So its either 'denim pants', if you must, or jeans NOT 'jeans pants'!).
So all through university I was 'bogged down' by the grey tee shirts, usually with adidas, nike or some such validation, jeans and sneakers. After moving to Canberra everyone expected the rapid decline of fashion tastes, what with being a Physics PhD student surrounded by jandals and shorts. However my fashion sense has picked up and I now not only own other colours (red even!) I wear them with pride and joy and today I'm even wearing earrings!
See, jewellery has never figured big on my fashion list. I like jewellery, don't get me wrong. I love the understated elegance of a single solitaire sparkling at the nape of my neck or the feel of a beautiful ring on my fingers, but over the years I seem to have stopped wearing or buying earrings.
Maybe it has something to do with the ear-piercing trauma as a child. You see my grandparents took me to the 'family ear piercer' while my folks were away overseas and, even though this is a blur now, I distinctly remember a big nail, some forceps-hammer like apparatus and a wooden block. Of course I also remember the devil himself but that is other news. Nope, no gun-shot, over in a minute for me. It was the whole nine yards. I remember pain, a lot of it, blood and me running away after one earlobe was pierced, to hide under the bed. Anyway so somehow the process was completed and I had two gold earrings shoved into my ears. I think I wore gold earrings in some form or another throughout my childhood and school years. Then we moved overseas and other matters gained importance, so over the years I have weaned off earrings altogether. Megz gave me beautiful handmade earrings when I moved out of Auckland, and to this day I depend on them for formal/fancy wear.
At my cousin's wedding last year, I realised with horror that my left ear lobe piercing is slowly closing up. Yes! Which brought back the piercing-horror afresh and so, as of yesterday, I went and bought three studs, brown, blue and black and unceremoniously pushed them through what is left of the piercing. Here's hoping that I never have to get my ear pierced again. Amen!
Next fashion post will be on shoes, handbags and scarves! - I feel so very *insert name of fashion magazine* ish today!