I'll forever cherish my 1990s River Island fashion faux pas

For my 13th birthday in the 1990s, all I dreamed about was a denim button-up dress from River Island worn over an oatmeal bodysuit.

- VICTORIA RICHARDS

Oatmeal - the height of sophistication! Not boring school shirt-white, not bland-old beige - but oatmeal. Slightly ribbed, with minute white flecks like a speckled egg. If I only had that bodysuit, I’d look exactly like Nicole Appleton from All Saints I just knew it.

I could wear it, I fancied, to attract boys like Justin Peterson in the year above me, whose name I used to write in my diary over and over with my special glittery pen with the pompom on the top. One look at my River Island denim dress with the iridescent shell pop buttons and he’d be mine. How could he resist?

And if he wasn’t sure, I had a secret weapon: shimmer pink lipstick with dark brown lipliner and a silver puffa jacket. Phwoar. (Spoiler: he wasn’t mine, and I never forgave my friend Gemma for wearing an even better denim dress with a maroon bodysuit beneath it, from Tammy Girl.)

Now, perhaps you can understand my heartbreak, because rumour has it that River Island bastion of bucket hats, purveyor of crop tops, combat trousers and woven belts, stalwart of satin slip dresses and velvet chokers with a small silver cross dangling from the middle could collapse within weeks, following £33m losses.

According to The Telegraph, the beloved retailer will go unless landlords and creditors approve a radical rescue plan due to be put before the High Court next week which would see 33 stores close, rents slashed on a further 71 shops and debts written off.