Cosmic leggings, star earrings

Jem and the Holograms; that magical ’80s cartoon in which our protagonist, Jerrica, transforms from normalcy to superhero secret identity with a touch of her star earrings. Jerrica’s alter-ego is a rockstar called Jem: pink-haired, ultra-cool, crystal-voiced and as partial to face paint as Gene Simmons (if KISS’s thunderbolts came in pink). She may not have been the regular kind of do-good superhero, but she was the hero of a generation of young girls who saved all their pennies for a pair of clip-on star earrings in the hope of becoming a rockstar, too.

So while Nikita didn’t grow up on an audiovisual diet of Jem and her cool-girl rock band, I can’t help but imagine her as a kind of ’80s rockstar superhero. The earrings are genuine relics of the era, after all (“they’re my Mum’s from the ’80s”, she tells me) and they do look magical on, when paired with Nikita’s flowing mermaid-like waves of raven/blue hair and the sprinkling of silver glitter at the corners of her eyes.

Add all that to a pair of Black Milk leggings that turn legs into galaxies, and I can only really describe Nikita in the following unusual yet rather glorious way: cosmic mermaid superhero rockstar. Now there’s a title not many people can claim.