With the tremendous irony that is so typical of London the ever-present rain disappeared just in time for the final dress rehearsals before the opening ceremony today. Why not wear layers and layers of synthetic material when it's 28 degrees? The stadium is ready, the park looks amazing, athletes have started to arrive and I...I look like someone who just walked out of a disaster zone on the corner of fancy dress and you-cannot-be-serious.
A quick call to my friend, the fashion insider at Company Magazine, confirmed my initial fear. "None of the items correspond to any major fashion trends in the foreseeable future", she explained and, having known her for a while, I figured that was fashion speak for a sartorial car crash, so the organisers' grand gesture of allowing us to keep the clothes after the opening ceremony seemed to be a hollow one. What to do with those items of clothing, if you can call them that? Simply storing them seemed pointless as, firstly, flats in London are notoriously short on storage space anyway and, secondly, digging them out and reminiscing about the event at a later stage would take up another precious commodity of Londoners: time.
Therefore, in the interest of helping out my fellow performers, I got to thinking about alternative uses for our various outfits, and with only hours to go until showtime and that question becoming too pressing, here are my top-five suggestions:
1. Your personal Olympic flame
Let's face it the amount of polyester and other highly flammable materials used in the production of said outfits will make it the perfect fire starter. In fact, it's now blindingly obvious why the Olympic Park is by and large a non-smoking zone, and I'm pretty sure the other day I even overheard some of the other cast members begging for the sunshine to stop for reasons of not wanting to turn into one big, melted plastic blob.
2. Waste not, want not
This Olympic cheerfulness can't go on forever and once the show has left town Britain will remember that we are actually in the middle of a gloomy recession. Austerity will once again be the name of the game so instead of conspicuously buying yet another brand new outfit which realistically you can't afford keep the one from the opening ceremony, ignore my fashion friend, and pass it off as vintage/next season/future trend/up-and-coming designer.
3. Turn it into fetish gear
Given London's often cited diversity I'm convinced there must be a clandestine fetish club (or at least a support group) for each and every one of our outfits. With a little bit of luck you might even bump into one of your fellow performers and (synthetic) sparks may fly.
4. Flog it on eBay
If some of the Olympic torches can fetch a nice amount of money on that auction site then there must be people out there willing to part with their hard earned cash for a little souvenir from the greatest show on earth. If you initial offer fails to attract any bids maybe add the words 'often worn' and explore websites linked to the clubs mentioned in point three.
5. Keep calm and carry on wearing it
Admittedly, this one's easier if you live in Shoreditch, Hoxton or Hackney with their fashion forward crowds and therefore hopefully more understanding of the slightly left-field chic of the outfits. But three billion people will very soon see you in your costume so what's another hundred or so up and down your local high street?
So, if any of you dear readers shortly run into someone who looks borderline deranged in the style department, possibly even following some inexplicit choreography, please give them a hug. The fact is they will have given their all to get London 2012 off to a breathtaking start. And that attitude will always be a major trend.