Signposts

Sadie

• Sadie’s Wardrobe is a classic “what I wore” blog of the type I love so much. Sadie is a cutie with a penchant for perfect vintage pieces. Look at her above; is this not delightful?
• Deena over at Fat Girls Like Nice Clothes Too has done a really in-depth post on the Beth Ditto for Evans collection, with the classic “changing-room photo montage”. I love the dedication.
• Daydream Lily is a beautifully-designed image blog run by a photographer with an eye for beautiful, atmospheric pictures. If you like Loveology, you will probably dig this. It directed me to the website Aspiring Couture, which features these amazing wedding dresses from ecofriendly designer Blushless. Although there is no law stopping people from wearing white dresses every day, these are thousands of dollars worth of couture-standard dress. I wish I could see bigger pictures.

Have a good weekend.

S

Thigh-high boots

They’ve been around for a couple of seasons and although I’ve always liked the look of them on others, they still had too much sex industry baggage for me to really get into them. Plus, literally no one seems to have bought any. The continuing devotion of Queen Michelle has given me a little pause for thought. I think a large part of why they would work on her is to do with how slim she is and how un-pretty-pretty her style is a lot of the time. Unlike how they are styled on Rachel Weisz in her Harper’s Bazaar shoot, it would be imperative to remove as much sex or allure as possible from the rest of one’s apperance. I’m not dissing sex workers but I don’t want to take this look too literally.

I probably worry about this too much, but I definitely try to steer clear of anything too form-fitting or low-cut on my top half because of all the attention it immediately attracts. I’m never looking for male attention. So perhaps the best way to wear thigh-high boots would be just to emulate the classic skinny jeans/volume top silhouette we all know and love so well (I am incredibly dedicated to this personally). Will jeans go under these boots? I can’t wait to see Michelle’s take on them because the concept does rather intrigue me.  I just don’t think that Rachel Weisz, or anyone, could walk down the street wearing them this way.

On a side note, Rachel Weisz takes an incredible photograph.

S

Maquillage

I have a nice little spot in front of the window in my wardrobe where I do my makeup, with a lovely padded floor cushion and good light. But I don’t have a suitably tidy approach to my makeup. I have four different bags in different states of tattiness. Less-loved items get relegated to more stained cases, while the favourites get to live in an oilcloth Cath Kidston purse with stars on it that my ex-flatmate gave me. It’s ideal in size and waterproofness when it comes to carrying a few bits to work and back, but isn’t fulfilling my needs at home.

I saw this case from Etsy today via an article at Tfs about how to store makeup. It would cost $100 or more with postage (not feasible with the exchange rate as it is) but I love the idea and it suddenly occurred to me my makeup isn’t being treated with enough respect and probably isn’t all that hygienic. I have a lot of nice makeup from when I used to have money and I much prefer posh brands like YSL and Benefit. Sorry budget makeup lovers, but I just prefer it. I’m not saying I look any better but frankly I probably take more work in facial upholstering terms than you do. I have complimented you into submission.

S

Emma Watson, my apologies

 

 

In Christopher Kane

Maybe the shiny hot messes evident at the Harry Potter premiere blinded me to your obvious abilities. I love this. I love Christopher Kane. I love you.

S

How Harry Potter actors get dressed

I have been giving almost too much thought to A’s theory of ugly dressing, whereby wearing ugly stuff makes you a better dresser overall. This thesis was brought to mind by the fashions on display at the Harry Potter premiere.

Helena Bonham Carter doesn’t get much love from style enthusiasts but I think she’s a fabulous maniac, in the mould of the greats, like Isabella Blow. She is also one of my favourite fancy-dress costumes ever. All her efforts do seem a bit mental but they’re clearly not designed to make her look pretty or conventionally sexy. She is sexy, but in a brilliantly off-kilter, British gothic way. It all started making sense when she got together with Tim Burton.

Then there’s the lovely Emma Watson, all peaches and cream complexion and long flowing dress. I don’t think she’s  bad dresser but I’m using this as an example of a pretty girl wearing a pretty dress. She looks gorgeous but where’s the styling here? I’ve been thinking a lot about the outfits I wear and post to DiscoNap and I keep finding fault with them for not being adventurous enough. If I have to spend my money, I find it goes on more cashmere cardigans. WHO AM I???!?!

Falling into the camp of Why is Daisy Lowe. It’s starting to get a bit old seeing gorgeous girls simply wearing ugly stuff and passing off as a style. I’ve seen Daisy Lowe be much more adventurous. She could do the Alice Dellal punk look or something that doesn’t incorporate pretty, girly items, but this just feels lazy, despite the glitz. What lifts an outfit out of the mire? I’m definitely not against silver jackets as a group.

I actually think the winner of the evening was Rupert Grint. A skinny, super-black suit with a hot pink waistband? I want this to be on me just to see what would happen.

S

How I get dressed for work

Limited edition Selfridges "men at work" sign. No, of course not really.

This isn’t the most fun but it is the most challenging part of my life to get dressed for. I work in publishing so for most of my working life have been allowed to wear whatever I want but now my job is more traditional so suddenly I am stuck in that smart-ish valley between formal and your own clothes.

In some ways having boundaries set upon your appearance can help you be creative but dressing for someone else really isn’t what I’m best at. When I interviewed for this job they commented on how my clothes weren’t smart enough because I was wearing a denim skirt. I really wanted to reject the job with the words “it’s Chloe, bitches” but I really needed the money, so here I am.

Working in the City, I see a lot of heinously, drably and sometimes weirdly dressed people, and a lot of suits paired with trainers. HIDEOUSNESS. But I also see ladies who have run with the aesthetic and look awesome. It’s much better to embrace the semi-smartness than to look like you’d feel happier in a fleece and jogging bottoms. It’s not about skinniness and beauty in this arena either. It’s about well-fitting clothes than project “give me money” (much more important than you think, for young whelks who still want to follow their dreams all the way to the job centre – that’s a bit harsh, but believe me when I tell you that the creative industries aren’t hiring right now).

In fact, workwear suits a lot of people more than weekend clothes do. If you have sticky-out-bits, then tailoring is your friend. I’ve seen some things recently that I like but would be too smart for my home life. Instead, I picture them upon the better S, who has a swishy ponytail, a steamed milk with caramel syrup, a briefcase full of manuscripts and hopefully an assistant who sorts out all the hard work.

This dress is really nice in real life and has an elasticated waistband, which I appreciate. I’ve only recently look in Warehouse for the first time since about the year 2001 and I was pleasantly surprised:

Warehouse, £45

The rules, based on my current colleagues, seem to be:

• waist belts
• raspberry pink
• built-in shirt/jumper combos

I am totally clueless when it comes to workwear, but I might try and document my dressing process for this most important of outfits.

S

Bikini still needed

Your senior France correspondant here: returned, slightly tanned and very sad to be back at work. I am however, pleased to be back online and writing on my beloved blog. Not much to report, other than I did take my wedges on holiday in the end. DiscoNap: it’s your first port of call for news on my holiday packing.

The very capsule wardrobe I took with me in the 10 kilos I was allowed worked pretty well. The only lack I felt was that of not having a bikini – I didn’t manage to find one in time before I left so was stuck with a boring black one-piece. The girls I was away with kept trying to make me buy bikinis but, as I tried to explain to them, it’s not a matter of grabbing a rough size and trying it on and buying it. If only. It’s a process that takes place over a long time, involves highly specific sizing and demands a vast amount of privacy.

What I really want is Chloe bikini because they are all beautiful, but obviously it’s crazy to spend that much money on something I will hardly ever wear and that will mostly go under a wetsuit or be seen only by my relatives (I’m not an adventurous holiday-maker). Or this lovely leopard-print one from Zimmermann:

I could work it I think.

In other clothing news, I found this brand in Biarritz called Sandro and I loved it. Why haven’t I heard of it before? There is apparently a store in Covent Garden so I may go and check it out. It’s pricey but I loved so much of the stuff – Cacharel-esque tiered floral dresses and that sort of thing. It is still summer; I will not return to regularly scheduled, non-floral programming until at least September. For the time being, I still want to dress like I live in LA and have a pool.

S

Papier = Paper

I’ve recently become fascinated by different materials. Years of shopping at cheap shops made me believe that all fun clothes were always made in that cotton/viscose/spandex mix but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve finally realised that this isn’t how clothes have to be. And shops like Cos prove that clothes really don’t have to be made of that weird, ugly mix – I bought a great black skirt in the sale yesterday (£25) which is a wonderful shape AND cotton/silk mix (photos coming shortly).

This ongoing fascination with materials makes me want to share this. I first came across this bag from Not Just a Label, and it is made of sterling silver backed paper. And it looks like paper on the outside and it crumples beautifully with age. And it is tear and water-proof. And the description charmingly describes the items as ‘Papier (= paper)’, in admiration of which I’ve named this post.

The pictures on the site show you the bag new, how it is made, the different colours available (white, black, yellow) and most importantly, how it’ll look after you’ve shown it a bit of love and use. I imagine you can also draw on it? I might have to put this on the wishlist.

A

Owl

What the… a three and a half thousand pound crystal owl-shaped handbag? WIN.

There nothing more life-affirmingly quirky on earth than a bag that performs almost none of the functions of a bag and is shaped like some seemingly random noun.

The bag has sold out on Net a Porter, so I’m afraid, dear readers, you cannot buy it. Should have been quicker off the mark I suppose.

S

Something from Nothing

Recently a friend asked me where I shopped and how I put outfits together. I found this seemingly simple question almost impossible to answer and I’ve been pondering the answer ever since.

A fuller answer will have to wait for another but I did say one thing, and although it seemed absurd to me, even as I said it, I’ve since come to fully believing it:

If you want to dress better, then go into a shop and pick up ugly things to try on

Now, this comes up with more than one caveat – firstly, this advice is more sound if you feel that your current style is in need of modification. As everybody’s definition of ‘ugly’ constantly changes, it’ll force you to try on items you may never have touched before. And you could be pleasantly surprised. This approach has certainly worked for me and I’m constantly amazed at other people’s ingenuity when teaming one item with another.

I saw another example of this today and feel that it illustrates my point well. You may have noticed the recent trend for crop tops? Why, I hear you cry?Well, that was also my initial thought but then I saw how blogger Diamondcanopy had incorporated this white lace Topshop crop top into her daily outfit and it made a lot of sense.

Blogger Diamondcanopy (photo courtesy of Diamondcanopy)

I recently moved jobs and got a great £75 Topshop voucher as a leaving gift. I intend to raid the sales racks and go for all the ‘ugly’ things. It’s going to be great.

A