It was 1988, and I wore an emerald green satin puff ball skirt and black patent shoes with clip on grosgrain bows. My hair was crimped, as was everybody else’s. I was eleven, and this was my first disco party, in the sitting room of Dominque Westaway’s west London home. Her parents had created a makeshift dance floor complete with strobe lights and a shiny disco ball and the DJ (no doubt, her Dad) played one dance hit after another as we all spun out on sugar and Belinda Carlisle. In between songs, we ate sausage rolls and sipped fizzy drinks like they were cocktails. There were no boys for us to slow dance with, so the DJ kept the tunes light and bouncy with our idol du jour, Kylie Minogue dominating the dance floor. Dominique’s party was the first and last of its kind. This was the moment, just before things got awkward, where we could sing into our juice boxes, dance like no one was watching, and feel free and footloose. After that, boys did enter the mix –– we were at an all-girls school, so it was often an older brother and his mates –– and the dynamic shifted. We traded in our puff balls for tube skirts, straightened our hair and bought wonderbras. Cue Nothing Compares To You and that swallow-me-whole feeling when the boy asked you to dance. It’s all so wonderful and heart-wrenching to look back on. Even more wonderful and heart wrenching is watching your girl preparing for her own first ‘disco’ party next month. Okay, less disco and more Doja Cat, but you know what I mean. Coincidentally, Iole tried on a simple black t-shirt and a silk shift in emerald green at Zara the other day that reminded me of that outfit. What goes around comes around, in fashion, and in life.