‘Who are you? Without the things that tell people who you are?’

On learning to unravel the way we present ourselves to the world

The entire Agent Provocateur back catalogue (although I’d settle for the Classics), a backless blazer made from 100% wool by Victoria Beckham, everything from Loewe, a lifetime supply of Frederic Malle and Neal’s Yard, and a house full of bedding made from heavy French linen. These are just a few of my favourite things.

We live in an economy dedicated to consumerism, especially in the so-called first world West, and to want is to live. What do you want for your birthday? For Christmas? For passing an exam? For your graduation? For your anniversary? For Valentine’s Day? For your engagement? For your baby shower? What do you want?

After yet another break up with the same person I ended up doing a lot of solitary walks in silence while I tried to process my thoughts and emotions. Commonly for me, I often come out of these moments with another realisation altogether and so it was with this. I started to think about the life I have created and the life I would want to curate for myself had I the dedication, wherewithal and let’s face it; control. I know the things I’d desire in that perfect world, but the question I began to ask myself is, why would I want them?

Marketers know well that every campaign has to come with a promise for the person buying it. This thing will make you happy/happier/clever/stronger/beautiful/efficient. It will make you accepted or desired; included or invited. Marketing and advertising copywriters have a way of making us feel less than in the absence of some life-changing product. Sometimes we want to be seen to be part of a tribe that we long to join. Clothes and things help us to do that.

Because I am nothing if not persistent in going after what I want, it is a huge let down when I “arrive” somewhere or with something I have purchased, to feel no different to how I did seconds earlier. The before and after do not seem so wildly different after all and the come down of such an absence of excitement is jarring. I know inwardly that things will not make me happy or change my life drastically but somehow I still feel as though I need them. They provide an invisible shield to protect me from my true feelings. They go before me like bridesmaids at a traditional white wedding in which the bride is ushered in to hushed reverence and expectation; here she comes! Who am I, without the things that tell people who I am?

It is a brave thing to step naked, as it were, into the world without a shield or cover. How we feel affects our output and how we engage with the people around us. But how we feel doesn’t necessarily need to be influenced by what we have or don’t have. And recently, having done three consecutive orders from Zara (and kicking myself having paid three separate lots of delivery fee) I’ve realised that in my case, the more I acquire, the more I desire. Those khaki green cropped high-waisted trousers I poured over for hours now sit unloved alongside the seamless form fitting cat suit which made feel like a s_xy super hero and the cropped jumper that shows off the – once hated but now accepted as a war wound - long jagged scar from an operation that removed one of my ovaries along with a cancerous tumour.

I thought these things would make me feel happy/desired/confident again as clothes so often do, for me. And maybe they did, but for a moment. But as I scaled the steep hills and surveyed my breath-taking surroundings while wearing none of those new things, I remembered the times I laughed most, once so hard I thought I had done something to my ribs. At a barn dance with one of my closest friends where we knew none of the steps; with my favourite little girl making videos of us singing together in French; at the end of a dinner party, talking late into the night about everything and nothing.

I remember what I was wearing, of course, because I may never stop loving clothes, but mostly I remember how I felt and I honestly don’t think that had anything to do with it.

Tola x

I’m the editor and creative director at Premier Woman Alive and co-host of the YouTube show Sisterhood. In 2019, I delivered a TEDx Talk on Debunking the Myth of Success and my first book, 'Still Standing:100 Lessons From An 'Unsuccessful' Life' (SPCK) is out now.