I kind of want this bag, and that troubles me.
I don't wear pink. I don't really like pink. I mean, pink itself hasn't really done anything wrong. It has just been misappropriated. And I struggle to separate my feelings about the colour from my feelings about the people who love it so much that they have to buy pink mobile phones and hair straighteners. I actually know someone with a pink iron, and that just makes me sad.
The people who dress their baby daughters exclusively in pink don't make it any easier, a phenomenon that I hold partly responsible for the entire generation of aspiring glamour models we will soon be faced with.
I didn't spend my childhood trussed up in candyfloss like some sort of JonBenet Ramsey figure, and probably nor did most girls my age. I wore little denim dungarees with tiny little plaid shirts under them, and sun dresses in yellow, green, white and blue, and some fetching little velvet numbers in red or navy with white lace collars come Christmas time. Incidentally, I also played with toy carpentry sets and the Millennium Falcon and the Fisher Price airport rather than plastic ironing boards and miniature kitchens.
I will admit that the Matthew Williamson mania of the late 90s did see me in a fair amount of bright pink (and turquoise, and things with dragonflies on them, and skirts over my indigo bootcut jeans) but we'll chalk that up to teenage insecurity and wanting to fit in. Plus, I'm actually thankful for the experience; it was such a terrible look that I credit it with turning me into the monochrome maven I am today.
Ever since then I have had a problem with colour. Colour is what Cheryl Cole wears. Colour is not what you will ever see anyone in the front row of a fashion show wearing, regardless of what's on the runway. And adding the word 'blocking' as a suffix never changes that.
And pink is the epitomy of this antipathy. Pink is my shorthand for people who drink white wine with the girls on a Saturday night and read chick-lit and wear fascinators and satin things from Coast to weddings.
But with Jil Sander's help, and more specifically the help of this, the Market bag from her SS11 collection, I think this could be the season that I rise above my prejudices. Look at me, I'm growing. Or I could if I had £580 going spare.
