Happy & Healthy

THE FASHION CODES AMONG GIRLFRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES.

About borrowing, copycatting, and hijacking

I am seriously captivated by Elke's clothing style. She keeps showing off her exciting Levi's jeans (the Wedgie), cool Chanel-ish shoes, incredibly sexy bralettes and another thirty-six thousand other things and of course she is also super disgustingly thin and I am not. But I have to let that go. Let it go! Okay, back to what I want to say: I recently noticed that I was also ordering a Wedgie and also Chanel-ish shoes. Which is quite a thing, of course, but the next day I made it even worse and wore the Chanel-ish shoes to the office.

However. On the way, a terrible doubt took hold of me. Was I about to break a very important fashion code? Was I about to be lynched? It was really one of those doubts that makes you feel nauseous, and short of breath too, and you think: should I maybe take a sedative? But in the end, Elke just thought it was really fun that I had the same shoes and it didn't matter much to her, besides they were quite cheap shoes. What a relief! What euphoria! If only I had known earlier that it wasn't that bad, right? We just can't go back in time together. But because I'm not the worst and because I want no one of you to ever experience something so terrible: the five most important fashion codes among girlfriends and colleagues.

Fashion code 1: Copycatting is allowed, but in moderation

You can definitely copycat once, but in moderation. After a survey at the office, the max was set at one big thing or two small things per year. Otherwise, it just becomes annoying and awkward, because someone is doing their best to look original and then you show up in the same items. BAM. Super mean. Just don't do it.

Fashion code 2: Copycatting is allowed, but not with too expensive and/or too flashy items

Don't copy anything that someone has saved endlessly for. For example, our Kiki saved her ass off last year for a gorgeous designer bag, but what does a good friend then do? Who is no longer a good friend? She lets (a week later) her aunt score the same bag in Paris. ‘It was on sale now!’

”Fine, I thought, why not, what a great friend I am”

Fashion code 3: Borrowing is allowed, but don't claim the item

You just won't believe this. So I had a colleague-friend. We worked together, hung out together, visited each other's homes. One day she saw a jacket hanging in my closet. A new, ridiculously expensive jacket that I hadn't worn yet. The colleague-friend completely lost it and asked if she could please please please wear it to a wedding coming up this weekend, because this jacket was the undisputed missing link in her outfit and without it, she would die. Fine, I thought, why not, what a great friend I am, I'm just saving people here, I should get a certificate, that kind of thing I thought. But! What was the lady casually wearing when I came to the office that Monday? EXACTLY. I didn't know how to react and eventually said she could keep the jacket because it looked so good on her. But inside I was crying, because she had now firmly claimed the jacket: everyone thought it was her jacket and it was beneath my dignity to set the record straight.

Fashion code 4: Don't buy items that the other wants but can't afford

A colleague was recently shopping with her best friend and was completely gaping at a Max Mara coat. It was a ridiculously expensive thing, but it was so beautiful! She was almost having a stroke from how beautiful it was. But unfortunately, the money was gone. Now, what happened then, the dogs wouldn't want to eat. The best friend just yanked it off the hanger and put it on. It looked fabulous on her, she walked to the cash register and without batting an eye, paid almost two thousand euros. Which is reprehensible for multiple reasons. First of all, it's extremely selfish, secondly, it's a show-off. You're just rubbing someone's face in it with your money. And that's just not chic at all.

”Then it's just downright nasty if you accidentally on purpose beat each other to the punch and buy the other's dream item”

NB. There is an exception to this rule: shoes that for whatever reason do not fit can certainly be purchased by the other. Unless the friend in question is going through sensitive times and experiences a setback from disappointment. Then it is not allowed.

Fashion code 5: Don't hijack ideas

Girlfriends talk A LOT. About relationships, about food, about work, about urgently needing to lose weight, about whether we should order another bottle of wine or have cocktails, about stupid colleagues who take the credit, and yes, about clothes. About items that have already been bought, but also about items that – as soon as there is money – urgently need to be purchased. Look, then it's just downright nasty if you buy the other's dream item. Example. Our Jet was once obsessed with a way too expensive designer bag. Truly: she woke up with it and went to bed with it and showed everyone pictures of the divine bag. Yes, even to her supposedly best friend A., who actually didn't want anything to do with designer bags. Not even a week later, Jet's phone rang. Friend A. was at the airport and urgently needed help. In fifteen minutes her plane was leaving, but now she had to choose between the blue and the black version of THE DESIGNER BAG THAT JET WANTED TO HAVE. Well dear people, what Jet felt then – the anger, the disgust, the shock, the humiliation – is beyond description. So I'm stopping now. But you understand, it was hell and the friendship never recovered.

That was it! But I'm sure I've forgotten quite a few fashion codes. Please share your codes on Facebook.