This post is actually my entry into Next’s current Guest Blogger Competition which they announced on their blog.  The winning blogger will be the lucky recipient of one £150 outfit every month for three months and also win the incredible chance to star on Next’s very own blog.  To enter you have a choice of 3 questions to answer within a blog post and I was naturally drawn to the topic called ‘Androgyny vs. Girly Trend – What’s Your View‘.  So this is my view. 🙂

I’ve haven’t always been a girly girl.  When I was a just a nipper, knee high in soil fishing out worms alongside my Dad gardening, I was a reluctant dress wearer.  I was all about dungarees with useful pockets (for hiding said worms) and trousers that would keep me warm and stop nettles from stinging my bare legs whilst I’d rummage beneath undergrowth hunting for raspberries and grass hoppers.  My Mum would try her best to remind me I was a girl; my hair grown long with a ridiculously massive fringe and skirts would appear in my drawers in bright fuschia pinks and neons.  By the time I hit my teens I was free to wear whatever I pleased, which meant an unfashionable return to jogging bottoms and other hideously unflattering clothing that did everything to mask and hide my developing figure.

This season I’ve found myself wincing, not at the pretty dusky chiffon and delicate pearl collars.  Not least the dozens of sweaters and skirts unashamedly blazened with 80s fair-isle that I recall myself wearing (I actually feel all warm and fuzzy seeing the array of marginally different versions of the cute nordic knit.)  No, what’s leaving me all cold this autumn is the androgyny trend.  Not womanly, and yet not manly.  Neither one nor the other.  Just, something?

Androgyny vs. Girly

I’m 30.  There’s no denying I aren’t the whipper snapper aged 4 pulling worms out of the garden anymore.  I’m a woman, and I’ve spent the best part of my twenties understanding and getting to know the body I grew into.  Only a few years ago did I reach my epiphany and declared “I don’t care what people think of me, I’m going to wear what really I want to”, and that’s what I did.  Okay, I live in my leggings, but I don’t limit myself to just that.  I just can’t be bothered with feeling I have to wear my jeans because of worry what people may think of my legs, or the ‘justification’ that I can’t wear a dress because it would show off my boobs.  Yes, I have boobs!  And since I finally acknowledged this, I’ve allowed myself to dress just how the heck I like.  Pretty girly dresses nipped in at the waist, cute floral skirts, tops that don’t hide my cleavage.  Tulle, chiffon and lace adorned with jewels.  I am a woman all about embracing everything that’s girly.  Everything my mum wished I’d worn when I was thirteen.

So that’s why I feel so personally aggrieved by the androgyny trend.  I don’t detest trouser suits with slouchy blazers, but I don’t want to hide whether I’m a man or woman.  I have a fantastic hour glass figure with boobs many would kill for (so I’m told) and there’s only one trend that fits this body like a glove.  I’m girly and I know it!