Suffering for Fashion - a poem

I have childhood memories of 50s fashion

when skirts billowed above sugared net

when nylons clung to gravity-fighting suspenders

and boned corsets squeezed waists and ribs,

when hair was rollered, backcombed, sprayed solid

and tethered at night by hairnet and curlers.

I grew into 60s psychedelia,

tottering on metal stilettoes

that crushed my toes into improbable points

while my Carnaby Street miniskirt froze my legs

although it did turn heads, attracted attention,

but not always of the right kind.

These days I’m surrounded by loose swing dresses,

ripped jeans, leggings, free-flying hair,

plimsolls with skirts

and not a corset in sight.

Where’s the grit? Where’s the pain?

Where’s the suffering for fashion?