The chill has set in and the isolated week of mandatory foggy days has rolled into Dubai. Not one to gleefully accept my lot in life, I mope and complain and stubbornly refuse to climb out of the covers until there is sunshine – as nature intended. But one can be grumpy only so long and then one seeks out the red woolen socks given to me by H, so long ago.
She bought them in London.They have no brand tag on them and inspite of acquiring a hole at the toe, they are and always will be “Where are my Lohn-dhon socks?”
Among crumbly sweaters from Zara, blingy hoodies from Ed Hardy and fastidious cardigans from Marks and Spencer, sit the name-less red socks at the top of the woolly pyramid.
And suddenly I miss the days of yore when high street shopping meant shopping for bargains and not buying cheap knock-offs of designer brands.
The charm of the ‘price haggle’, the lure of ‘the next shop will have better stuff’ and the joy of discovering an eccentric skirt that should have been a trouser but stopped on its way to becoming a dress!
Sometimes you just want to shop in a place where every thing is not fixed price. Where product category precincts do not place food miles away from the clothes. Where there is comfort in the sheer chaos of the product display and a refrigerator magnet can become the big discovery of the day.
Like a souk or a bazaar or the Global Village in Dubai.
Its where you know not everything was produced in a factory. Where everything is not predictable and clinical and announced in the spring -summer collection. Its where you re-discover your favorite brand every time, the brand called ‘you’.
