If there’s one person you shouldn’t pull over in customs (by the wrist), tearing apart their carefully packed suitcase, removing their expensive two-piece lingerie sets with the same disdain (if not more) as a foisty dishcloth covered with mince, scrambled eggs and scrappy bits of soggy cornflakes - it’s the reporter doing a travel feature. As she may be inclined to write an angry blog.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Because it can. It does. It did. To me. And I’m furious.

Stepping off the plane in Tenerife in oversized Gucci shades, crisp cotton shirt and brown tortoise shell Primark platforms (which I felt did a convincing job of looking closer to Prada) I truly believed I was carrying off the “seasoned traveller by way of Milano” look.

Clearly, I should have taken a glance in the mirror as my look apparently screamed “Asylum Seeker by way of North Africa” or at least that’s what the police thought.

Not the fashion police (which would have been less mortifying and I would have gladly put the budget footwear in Room 101 if requested) but the Spanish police themselves in all their brutal glory.

Pulling me to the side, a tanned and leathery woman with straggly hair slid her hand into her pocket...”Here we go”, I thought. She’s either going to offer me drugs or, worse, some bargain ticket to one of the island’s less gainly attractions. She actually pulled out a police badge. Oops.

Not panicking, I showed her my British passport gladly on request. The only addictive thing I was carrying was my sparkling personality after all - which isn’t an arrestable offence. Though I’ve often been told it should be.

A male officer joined her, and together in broken English they fired questions at me: what are you doing here? Who do you know here? Where is your mother? How long have you been in the UK? How long are you here for? Why is your suitcase so big?

The answers being: I’m here to score as many freebies as possible, I know no one, my mother is sunning herself on a beach in The Bahamas somewhere, I’ve lived in England all my life apart from stints in the Middle East, I’m here for three days and my suitcase is so big because it takes a lot of stuff to look this cool.

And the numerous visas from my travels to Ghana is because I like the food. Not because I'm smuggling cocaine. Honest.

They should have sent me straight down. But they opted for donning white gloves to rake through my suitcase, taking my passport from me to check it’s authenticty, and finding nothing, letting me go. Without apology.

With a burning face, I slid my hand into my pocket to give them a business card. “Oh a reporter”, he said suddenly speaking perfect English. Oops.

And as I looked at the people in the baggage claim, scores of other young British tourists, the same age as myself, heading off for sun, sea, sand and sex in Costa Del Chav - I wondered why they had singled me out.

Temporarily disillusioned with humanity and fashion, it seems that still, even in the Noughties, whether it’s at a Stockwell tube, a designer department store or a Spanish airport - it’s not what you wear, or who you are that makes the impression but your skin colour.

As I relayed my horror story to my Spanish hosts for the duration of my stay - she answered flippantly, “Oh they probably thought you were Cuban.”

Faith restored - in my fashion sense.