Fashion: #SimplyBeReal

I was recently contacted by Simply Be and asked if I wanted to share a story of one of my fashion mishaps.  Their lovely illustrator Anke provided me with an illustration to go with my story.

It's safe to say that I've had my fair share of fashion mishaps. Growing up in the 90s and being a teenager in the 00s meant that I look back on a lot of my old outfits and cringe - especially the ones when I was old enough to make the decisions about what I wore.
There's been so many different items of clothing that I wish I had just burnt - the pink patchwork hat I insisted on wearing over crimped pigtails (what?!), the rainbow coloured 'shag bands' that I had going up both of my wrists and arms at primary school, the Steps tshirt that I proudly wore for weeks after seeing them in concert and the disgusting pink thong that I bought on one of my first shopping trips with a friend in my early teens. The one thing that really sticks out to me though, is a pair of jeans.  Just after my 14th birthday,  armed with my birthday money I went into my local New Look where they were having a sale and fell in love with a pair of black jeans. These weren't your average jeans though, oh no - they were fitted at the top but had the widest, baggiest legs you've ever seen. They were proper 'greebo jeans'. Obviously, emo-wannabe Hayley loved them but my mom absolutely hated them. They were so long that they dragged along the floor when I walked, soaking up any rain water they came into contact with - this meant that when I got home they used to stink like a wet dog. They were also ripped to shreds but I adored them. I thought I looked proper edgy, wearing them with my bright green converse and a red hoody with loads of eyeliner. 
I thought I was dead cool back then. Now I look back, I realise how daft I looked with my soaking wet, ripped jeans that were so big I probably could have used the excess material to make a whole new pair.  You won't catch me in anything but my faithful skinnies nowadays.