"The Beginning of the Fall of the Fashionista"

When we first had this idea of going to India I envisioned going with just a pile of books, some mosquito nets and the clothes on my back.

I have always wanted to travel light - only I've never been successful at doing it. I like to be prepared for every fashion eventuality, and as a result I massively overpack.

My fantasy is to go with next to nothing, buy all my clothes from some market stall and wear them till they fall apart (or till I board the plane back to England and bin the whole lot at the airport). How blissful to live that disposably (ahhhhhh...)

Only thing is, I LOVE clothes...I love MY clothes...and I'm not sure I can be parted from my lovely things for so long.

Today I started having a go at sifting and sorting through my gigantic wardrobe and have now, several hours later, ended the whole exercise in defeat.

If my 'sorting' is anything to go by, I will be taking enough clothes to wear a different outfit every day for the next six months (sigh). This will simply not do. Not only have I put aside almost a dozen items of footwear, I have packed such schizophrenic items as my Abercrombie & Fitch denim shorts, a flowing peasant skirt, a bright blue sequin bandeau top and a cheerleading ra-ra skirt.

I'm hopeless. Not only do I end the day having not accomplished a single damn thing...but I appear to have a worrying misconception about how old I am / the current state of my no-longer-17-year-old-body / what activities I intend to undertake whilst I am away.

I suppose the one good thing that might come of all this, is the sense of space and simplicity I'll achieve if I really can rid myself of at least half of my current wardrobe...only keep the things I truly love...

Then I can amuse myself for the duration of our stay in India by watching the various young Karnatakan beach sellers parading up and down the sand wearing various, random items of my wardrobe.

That sequin bandeau will have it's heyday yet...you wait