Loser is the New Black

I would have thought that cool people ski. You see celebs on the slopes all the time, with their chic outfits and sleek goggles, shwooping through powdery snow then undoubtedly heading off for an evening of exclusive après ski. That may well be the case for them, but the thing is: I ski. I ski in fourteen layers of jumpers and waterproof trousers, whatever sunglasses I can find in the hall cupboard, a hat that looks like a tea cozy, and far from shwooping cleanly, I struggle off the chair lift, adopt the crash position, point myself in the direction of ‘down’ and scream most of the way. And at the end of the day, when the über cool après ski is getting going, I am in the car, looking as though I have had a chemical peel except for my startlingly white, pasty even, eye sockets singing along to French radio.

It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I was all about being cool. I spent my teens and early twenties scouring Portobello Road for outfits worthy of Carrie Bradshaw (which wouldn’t look as though they cost a fiver,) begging, borrowing and flirting with every doorman in the West End to gain entry to the Atlantic, the Met Bar, Chinawhite, or whatever club was top of the list that week – I even worked at a few trendy venues just so that they would have to let me in, and carefully vetting the people I considered hanging out with to ensure the perfect mix of impoverished but funky creatives and slick imminent executives.

I am not entirely sure when it all changed. I suspect that Canada had something to do with it, a country where ‘cool’ generally refers to the weather or beer; all of a sudden my carefully created London image seemed… a bit daft. Don’t get me wrong – I will always love fashion and the lure of the VIP room that I have no business getting in to will always be the occasional Saturday night challenge, but I am happy to have discovered how much more fun it is to be utterly uncool. What’s more, I’m in pretty good company. Chris Martin recently mused that while every other band was getting their knickers in a twist over being the coolest, Coldplay decided that they’d concentrate on being the least cool – and I’d say it’s working out for them. J.D. Fortune refers to himself as a lanky geek – and that doesn’t seem to be holding him back much at the moment. In fact, it seems to me, that not being cool is the new being cool.

If I was still hung up on being in with the in crowd, I wouldn’t have had so much fun at a boyband concert with my sister, screaming along with the thirteen year olds (once upon a time my ever so credible – whether I actually liked it or not – taste in music was the cornerstone of my coolness) nor would I happily spend plenty weekends slobbing around in sweats playing Scrabble with my Grandma. On a spare afternoon in L.A. a few weeks ago, when I could have headed for Sunset or Rodeo and posed with the best of them, I went – wait for it – to the library. Yes, the L.A. Central Library where I whiled the afternoon away devouring newspapers from the 1920s (early Hollywood being an obsession of mine.) Indeed, if I held any last hopes of being cool, would I giggle to myself over the tragic title of this blog - eclaire, for goodness' sake?

The more I think about it, the more I suspect that no one is born cool. Well, maybe Kate Moss, but that’s it. Mere mortals like the rest of us have to work bloody hard at it, and there comes a point when the rewards – an evening spent teetering in an outfit that doesn’t fit chatting with people who are neither interested nor interesting for the most part – just aren’t worth the hassle. If I’m right and geek chic really is the trend of the naughties, then I look forward to observing the few true cool trying to fit in with those of us in the know. Posh launching herself at a glass door in the vain hopes of braining herself and having to walk through the shop pretending not to be dazed? Kate trying and failing to mis match her socks and concentrating to become so engrossed in the newspaper that she utterly misses her mouth and pours half a Starbucks steamed milk (I’m not even cool enough to like coffee) down her front? Brad and Angelina leading the Birdie Dance and being mortified when they do it so damn well that they look cool anyway?

Now that I have confessed all, I will also tell the truth: it wasn’t French radio I was singing along to on the way back down from the mountain. It was ABBA.