You can publicise it to all and sundry and desperately hope it will transform your life. For all the years you’ve lived so far, this is the sole statement that will change you into the person you’ve always wanted to be. To check your new year resolution is suitably stuffed with false hope, determine that it must make you healthier, richer and wiser, yet younger looking.

These buzzwords must be particularly poignant for the 21% of 7 million Britons that pledged to give up fags last year. Yes, the problems associated with smoking are well known; it can debilitate your body into an empty concave of what it once was, rob you of your hard earned cash and age you quicker than you can say ‘Botox please’. With warnings on cigarette packets, lungs decaying all over billboards, and the public ban, the majority of people that pledge to stop smoking each year still fail. Is it bad marketing, lack of will power or are we simply misjudging ourselves?

Last year I pledged to eat breakfast every day. I felt better when I did and, in an ideal world, would have seen it through. Yet when it came down to it, I’d rather an extra twenty minutes in bed than a better metabolism. This year, I could shake off my social smoking habit if I wanted to. Indeed, I’m one of those horrifically annoying people who will deny I’m a smoker, because a couple outside a bar once a week doesn’t count, right? Though I am slightly embarrassed to admit I fall into that category, I’m not shy of coming clean about why I smoke. I think it looks good on me. As fashion editor, I may not be surprising anyone with such vain allegations, but allow me space to justify.

Like most twenty-somethings, I favour a certain scene. The places I go, the music I listen to, the clothes I wear generally all fit the rule. A scene that promotes individuality, yet sees many of its followers indulging in the same die-hard habits; perhaps the most prevalent of these being smoking. For me and many of my friends smoking is a social custom that hasn’t been diminished by the ban. The pavement outside can be more crowded than the bar itself whilst everyone drags away, eyeing each other’s outfits.

Kate Moss recently admitted she’d never quit, stating, "It’s who I am. I don’t want to create a phony facade. I think I just have to be myself, otherwise I’d just be a paranoid mess". Well, whatever your thoughts on that, at least she’s coming clean about her shortcomings. Many friends who are 10-a-day types started because their icons, namely rock stars, models or post-war movie heroines always had that dirty-chic, fag in hand thing going on - it’s hard to deny it’s a good look. I don’t know many people who think the girl on the motorbike in the NHS Stop campaign doesn’t look better with smoke flaring from her lips.

Smoking isn’t something that I’m encouraging. Its damage stretches to every area of the body and starts within 20 minutes of even one cigarette. It’s been a part of many people’s identities as well as Western culture for decades though, and I think the sooner more people admit they do it for aesthetic reasons, the faster more appropriate quitting strategies can be developed, alongside more believable advertising campaigns. I’m the first to confess that damaging my body for the sake of vanity must need more therapy than a nicotine patch can provide.