Tasha Dhanraj despairs of ever looking cool

Today, I have a wardrobe that is heaving. Problem is, all of the cardigans and dresses and trousers loudly shout one fact that most people spend their whole life trying to hide about themselves: I am totally uncool.

Clothes are probably the second thing people notice about you. First being gender. I reckon most people’s brains are subconsciously wired to meet someone and think ‘Ooh, potential person to marry and live happily ever after with – oh dear, what are they wearing?’

Of course, this is just my personal theory, but peacocks don’t just flash the feathers as a mode of homeostasis.
I should be able to dress well given that a good 60 per cent of my wardrobe is made up of my sister’s hand-me-downs.

My sister just knows what looks cool. Over the last year she has spent more time in Urban Outfitters than I spent on my history coursework. About once every six months she gathers a few items she no longer deems ‘in’ enough to be seen outside the house in – and gives them to me.

I always spend about a week after receiving the clothes wearing them around the house in desperate bids to win her approval, only to find out that I’m wearing the skirt backwards and I’m wearing the top with the wrong kind of hairstyle.

The other 40 per cent of my collection is clothes that I have bought in charity shops or occasionally something I actually spent money on, confident it would somehow revolutionise my life and unlock my inner fashionista. The most recent purchase of this nature is a small, cream netted waistcoat type thing.

Everything about it means it should be cool. I bought it from a Brooklyn designer; it is totally impractical; it has holes in it that are there deliberately… The problem now is that there is nothing else in my wardrobe that I can wear it with.

I’ve tried it with every top I own and it either makes me look like a lonely pirate or someone who has been rolling around in the bags of tatty fabric that the Salvation Army throws away.

In truth, cool clothes shouldn’t matter. After all is said and done, who we are on the inside is what is important. No peacock is going to make friends if he is a massive tool. Unfortunately for me, I’m the same inside and out.

All cool clothes would do is faintly mask the Tasha underneath who still plays the Sims, eats Babybel and listens to Donny Osmond.