I Heart This

BALENCIAGA SS19

This. Is. Perfect.

This look from SS19 Balenciaga is rocking my world right now. It’s simple but it’s understated perfection, from the sweetheart neckline to the subtle padded shoulders and the pockets and right down to the heart shaped glasses. I’d wear this entire look just to go to Tesco. Since I already own red heart shaped glasses I am now hunting high and low for a similar dress, of course.

Velvet is an enduring love for me. It was my go-to material in the 80’s and through all my various alternative phases - metal, goth and punk - I was never far from something velvet. In fact, as I write this post I am wearing a velvet dress. When you develop such a string sense of identity so early on in life it really stays with you. The second I found heavy metal music I knew that was who I was and what had been missing in my 12 years of life. At such a young age I never fitted in with any of my peers and I didn’t know why. Why I didn’t like their music, why I looked awkward in the kind of clothes they wore, why I found the things they liked boring. I felt isolated and alone. But I became friends with a weird, awkward girl who lived for Iron Maiden. She let me hear The Number of The Beast and suddenly everything clicked into place.

This was who I was.

I absorbed her issues of Kerrang magazine, enthralled by the photos of biker jacketed, long haired men and velvet draped women and it felt like coming home. I begged some money from my parents and bought a Motorhead t-shirt and I tie-bleached a denim skirt and my first ever heavy metal outfit was born. Finally feeling like I belonged somewhere was the most incredible feeling imaginable. What I didn’t realise was being into heavy metal made me an outsider. I wasn’t mentally prepared at first for the catcalls of ‘greaser’ and ‘hippy’ that inventively followed me wherever I went. But it wasn’t long before my stubborn nature kicked in and I wore those catcalls like a badge of honour.

I soon met other people who also liked what I liked and before long I was part of a little heavy metal crue of outsiders. Those were the happiest years of my life by far. So it’s little surprise much of of the things I loved back then I still love now.