Also: For real, Anthropologie, your prices are ridiculous and even my excessive devotion is faltering.

In my totally awesome feminist book club last week, we were talking about Disney princesses, and segued into clothes. Now I generally feel quite cheerful about the (nearly universal?) instinct towards self-decoration (embellishment?) but it is rarely uncomplicated by social meanings, people's individual neuroses, whatever semiotics are going on. Which can, of course, just make it more interesting, but for women in particular it can be so riddled with extra anxieties - Do I look fat/attractive/professional/immature/overdressed/underdressed/whatever? If I look or do not look a certain way, what does that mean for what I actually am? - that it stops being enjoyable and just becomes burdensome.

Which is a pity, because any exercise involving colours and shapes ought to just be part of our daily play, the game of waking up each day and sorting out who we are. I loved playing dress-up as a kid - Now I'm a witch! Now a queen! Now I'm invisible! Now I'm invincible! - and have been taking enormous satisfaction in cultivating that sense of fun again.