Whenever I witness anyone sporting a getup so ghastly as to be considered heinous by the fashion world, I am reminded of my own catalogue of sartorial slips.

For example, at the tender age of ten I believed being fashionable meant dressing from head to toe in pastel pink. This disastrous style choice clashed with my then tom-boy demeanour, casting me as a boisterous ball of bubble gum constantly bouncing off the walls.

Fast forward a dozen years and I am reformed, in clothing and character. My garrulous ways have been tamed into a nature fit for public display and my one direction wardrobe has been restocked with a fantasy of fabrics in prints and patterns.

Although my mother still laments the long grooming routines my love of fashion entailed, she has certainly appreciated the tranquillity that comes with feeling confident about my look. I cannot recall the first time I flicked the pages of a glossy fashion magazine, but sighing over montages of elegant models has now become a daily routine.

Even then I probably paled with envy at the unobtainable bodies of those goddesses and their even more unobtainable outfits (not at those prices). Yet the magazines which sanctioned my sense of style were the precursor to my student years at Oxford, where I traumatised tutors by opting for essay topics far removed from tradition – theories of Dior rather than Democracy.

Immersed in the dreaming spires and free glasses of prosecco (at least during Oxford Fashion Week) I found my calling: a career in fashion at any cost. The recession had taken hold so it would be a career on a variable budget.

I graduated, adopted Oxford as my spiritual home, became a full-time fashion fanatic and seriously serial bargain hunter. Now established as a fashion consultant in the Big Smoke, I find myself launched into London’s fashion scene, rubbing shoulders at shows with fellow fashionistas, all loudly protesting: “I am NOT a diva!”

With a healthy consumer appetite, I passionately devour fashion, yet I remain at heart a bargain hunter, though I have plateaued from car boots to vintage fairs. Perhaps there was some foundation in that perilous pink palette for what would become the new, style-savvy me.

After all, give me a confluence of colour over 50 shades of greige any day. And fashion mistakes? Well I’m adventurous enough to be experimental with what I wear, so I probably still make them at least twice a week – and learn from them.

I’ll try anything at least once, including new trends, well aware that many won’t suit me. But fashion disasters? Thankfully, these days, far less frequent. Fashion mistakes are 24-hour errors that probably only you will notice. Fashion disasters make you stick out and stay in memory like Big Bird on the front row of Burberry.

The trick is to master the art of being a fashion follower without becoming a die-hard fashion victim…and avoid pastel pink like the plague.

Anusha works as a fashion consultant, based in London