My poor, dear Disgruntled. Rest your artfully scruffy hair upon my shoulder, sling your peace beads out of the way and allow me to pat you consolingly on the back of your thin-knit, deep-V-neck American Apparel T-shirt. Nothing – neither war nor famine, not even dogs and cats living together – is worse than when a celebrity steals your look. OK, they might not know they have stolen your look, but stolen it they have, and a style that you once carefully cultivated now makes you look like a reject from a weekly celebrity magazine’s Get The Look feature.

Of course, some people would say you are lucky, Disgruntled, to have a celebrity pursue your look when so many people expend so much energy and money pursuing theirs. According to one of the 15,763 fashion press releases I got last week about George Clooney’s wedding (so take this upcoming fact with a large fistful of salt), all the dresses Amal Alamuddin was photographed in during her weekend in Venice immediately sold out online, and the thousands of copies promptly sold out, too. This, frankly, astonishes me. Anyone who is over the age of 16 and copies how a celebrity dresses should, for their own good, have their debit card cancelled and be forced to seek professional help. Who on earth are those alleged “thousands of brides” (again, from a fashion press release, hence “sceptical” “quotation” “marks”) who copied Kate nee Middleton’s wedding dress for their big day? And can you please write in because I am genuinely fascinated by your thinking. Why would you want to look like a royal re-run as opposed to yourself? Because if a celebrity wears something I own, this instantly renders the garment toxic: it must immediately be taken to Oxfam, ideally in a toxic waste bag while wearing a Hazmat suit. It has been tainted for ever with the cloying stain of celebrity, and the only thing tackier than being a celebrity is looking like a celebrity copycat.

Which brings us to your problem, Disgruntled. Again, I can sympathise, because a celebrity once stole my look and that celebrity’s name is Zooey Deschanel. Throughout my 20s, my daily style could be described as “cute girlish dress, ideally with a collar, black tights, whatever the weather”. It was, I liked to think, patting down my Peter Pan collar smugly, a look that worked in the office and out with friends. Clever me for coming up with such a (not-exactly-complicated) style! And one so different from all the Kate Moss skinny-jeans copycats and Sienna Miller boho-alikes who filled the streets in the first decade of this century. Yay me, I cheered, only for my cheer to catch in my throat and turn into a scream of horror when someone innocently showed me a magazine feature about Ms Deschanel’s style. For there it was: my look, but better. Her dresses were nicer and none of her tights had holes in them. Worse, while I had been known to wear tights in the London summer, she was wearing these thick black tights in Los freaking Angeles, meaning that she was even more dedicated to the look than me.

Knowing I was bested, I ceded the field to Ms Deschanel. Horrific as a life without the crutch of my dresses seemed, a life in which people thought I was deliberately trying to copy some random actress seemed a lot worse.

And it probably worked out for the best. It was time to branch out a little, and if it took Zooey Deschanel to push me off the cliff of cutesy little dresses and into the world of more adult dressing, well, question not the means but welcome the result.

Sometimes it’s only when we see our clothes on someone else that we realise that it’s time to move on, whether it’s realising how Sloaney Issa dresses actually are when Kate Middy wore them or marvelling at how disgusting most designer clothes are when Kim Kardashian wears them. Celebrities: generally pointless, occasionally useful.

So what to do about you, Disgruntled? Well, there is no question that Russell Brand, the class warrior we deserve, has a very recognisable look, but it does also sound to me that you have no intention of changing yours. Rather, you just want to grouse about it, and point out that you got there first. And that’s absolutely fine, because I reckon that Russell’s style is on the move again to something a little more befitting the social-justice campaigner he appears to be now.

Brand’s look has actually changed quite a lot over the past decade, with the man ditching his waistcoats, his eyeliner and his massive back-combing as gleefully as other men ditch their socks – and all credit to him. Who among us can really be bothered to think about our look as intensely as Mr Brand? Anyway, what I’m saying, Disgruntled, is don’t worry about it. Wear whatever you like. By this time next week Russell will have moved on to something else entirely (Che Guevera chic?) and the comparisons between you and him will be moot. But for the sake of your future fertility, maybe cool it on the skinny jeans. And for the sake of everyone else, ditch the peace beads.

long prom dresses