A fashion wave has flooded Sweden, and half of the girls and women in this country, or in Stockholm at least, wear almost identical outfits. This spring’s “must have clothes” and “essential look” consists of 1 pair black leggings, 1 pair canvas shoes, 1 tight micro mini skirt (preferably black, and just long enough to hide the crotch) and some sort of fitted jacket. They are everywhere. Last weekend while I was out with Ingrid I ran across a group of five teenage girls, all wearing “the look” – although one had a white mini skirt instead of black – plus identical half-long blonde hair. Attack of the clones!

What makes these people want to look just like everybody else? I can agree that leggings are practical and comfortable, and I could imagine myself looking reasonably good in them, but not now! There is no way I would, of my own free will, buy clothes that I would see mirrored on every other woman I meet in the street. My instinctive reaction to seeing all these uniformed women is to resist, pull back, find something different.

As an unfortunate side effect, all shops are full of chunky leggings (especially black, but also bold bright colours) and there are hardly any nice tights to be had anywhere.