This is Spice Girls purple. More specifically, Geri Halliwell purple. Even more specifically, the colour of a funky top Geri wore in one of the pictures of the band that are stuck in my memory—and that immediately take me back to being 9 and scouting early HTML fan pages for their pictures, which I then printed. The earliest memory I have of the internet is sitting in my dad’s office, on the rare times I visited his work, and being allowed to sit at a computer and surf. I remember simple white-and-blue pages, which then felt futuristic. The fact that I was the very target audience probably influences my seeing them as revolutionary—but I know how empowering and fun it felt to be their fan. It sounds cheesy now, but they taught me it was okay to do whatever you want—in life, and with your body. In retrospect, this is all the more extraordinary because I was growing up in Barcelona—and going to a middle school that, like all others around it, was taken by storm when the band’s popularity arrived to Spain like a platform-wearing, swearing whirlwind. I “played” Geri in school recitals, and I remember that purple top so vividly—cut well above the navel.

Marta Bausells is a writer and editor based in London. She works for the Guardian’s culture desk, and is on Twitter @martabausells.