Hot pink

The last thing I really need is a new dress but I haven’t yet fully embraced the new neon/sheer/pastel thing and so a part of me thinks that this strange but cool dress from Asos (£60) if what my already overstuffed room is looking for. I particularly love the hotness of the pink; I’ve been into this concept since Carrie’s Oscar de la Renta in Season 6 of that show I still love:

Don’t even talk to me about The Carrie Diaries until I’ve seen the first episode. I don’t think anyone coming to SATC in a post SATC: The Movie world could possibly understand my relationship with it. Who is doing the styling? How will they find someone with SJP’s perfect combination of haughtiness, charisma and unusual beauty (SHUT UP MEN) to play her? Okay we’ll address this after I see the first episode, which will be a while. In the meantime I will soothe myself by reading the first four Gossip Girl books.

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All the pretty pastel birds

I am in colour palette heaven at the moment with all the pastel, rosy pink, pops of neon and general fluff around. I appreciate it must be driving less whimsical souls a bit mental but I really enjoy “pretty” and so do the magazine editors. Funny that Elle and Vogue feature the same outfit, especially as it bears a similarity to the ubiquitous Miu Miu pastel dress of a couple of years ago.

I especially love the Elle cover with Alexa for it’s soothing colours and promise of shopping pages that will lead me to my perfect bow-embellished shoes and sheer or lace dresses. And I always love the Vanity Fair starlets cover – I love a starlet, especially when they rise to prominence via a teen drama. British actress Felicity Jones features on the cover. Sadly, Chalet Girl was a pretty hateful film so she’s yet to win me over and frankly they underestimated how my (and surely all viewers’?) love for Sophia Bush would derail any storyline that slights her.

 I have no idea where we are with the Lana Del Rey love or hate, you have to check Twitter hourly for that, blogs are such a slow medium! But I’ll still get this issue for its promise of introducing “fashion’s most fabulous florist”. I am a very committed consumer of flowers and am considering taking a course in flower arranging, plus I’m very bored with supermarket flowers and need to head to a cut flower market if there is such a thing to provide myself with resources. The downsides of floristry includes bug immigrants and very cold hands but I am prepared to suffer for my art.

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Pinky nude and see-through

I have always been a total sucker for the vintage-y, nude tones look in chiffon and silk. I spend a lot of time at home due to the nature of my work/study life and I aspire to spend this time wafting around in gothic white lace dresses and other romantic things (in reality I wear pyjama-bottoms and t-shirts, like everyone else – my current favourites are purple with sheep on). Asos’ “new in” selection is going more Grecian than bridal, and I like the Sophia Kokosalaki feel of this dress.

A compromise between my desire to wear nightwear, lace and the need to actually be in public sometimes might be fed by this skirt:

There is something mildy annoying about clothes that require another whole investment buy though – my Topshop maxi skirt didn’t get worn much last year because it really needed a slip to avoid cling and I never wanted to spend the money on it.

I bought a beautiful nude vest from Cos that is literally completely transparent – it wouldn’t even photograph for the blog. So this required the further purchase of a crop top to wear underneath and after spending around 40 seconds in Topshop I went for this dodgy-looking but surprisingly comfortable leopard-print version:

I recommend this because it’s boned and stretchy. I now wear it under anything a bit see-through because vests can thicken you up but I often find I need something opaque between me and the world.

A more clothing-like option, from Asos again:

I think we’re, as a nation, past the situation that happened in 2009 where trousers were practically abolished and that of the year 2000 where a nightie was an acceptable outfit. I’m definitely a lot less literal about the trends now and as a grown-up lady, prefer to channel high fashion via the magic filter of Cos and Asos, which turn bad ideas into good ideas.

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Tie a bow on it

Tying a bow on it makes it better.

Usually.

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Frou frou and fabric and frills oh my

This frills trend is fabulous and I am so tremendously bored of everything I own I want to tear everything into rags, sell the rags and buy a sequinned zip-frill dress from Primark with the resulting £4. I will have to wear it every day because I’ll own no other clothes but as long as I retain some woollen tights and my duffle coat I won’t die of exposure.

 A better option for my party-season pennies might be this good look-alike of the Lanvin dress, above, from Asos., whose magazine I have started receiving in the post against my will but which I find strangely good reading. I do wonder how it is that Asos can get their magazine to me but Elle, which I actually want, has still failed to turn up.

I’m in the mood to look more glamorous than my duffle coat allows me to and as soon as I have clothes funds, I am going to go and buy a feel-good dress. I have been fantasising about something like the Oscar de la Renta dress Carrie wears in season 6 of Sex and the City. Hopefully you remember that big shiny box because this picture really doesn’t do the feeling justice. I would like my dress to come in big black shiny box too.

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Nothing rhymes with purple

But I love it anyway. These are the trousers I am now thinking I will bag from Cos after work. I am envisaging so many purple and pink themed outfits. After a period of desiring only to wear black, grey and navy it seems I am emerging from my cocoon.

And clearly these fine trousers need to be worn with such items as these:

Yellow top from ASOS, pink top from COS. Acronymtastic.

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Slobbing

 

It’s been quite an eventful week – The Apprentice started again, I worked at a cool place for a change and I even went to the gym (unheard of – I was so naive I forgot my jogging bottoms and assumed that towels would be provided, as if it was a hotel). For some reason, with all this running around I really haven’t been feeling getting dressed up. Maybe it’s because I was working with teeny tiny people who were working the “oh this old thing” dressed-down look that only looks good on the beautiful and minute (I am of the course the former but not the latter – that’s just not me) and so I started doing a jeans and cardigan thing every day.

When I went shopping after work on a particularly stroppy day I also realised that I am now drawn more and more to the “perfect” and yet very default item, for example a striped t-shirt or some cotton plimsolls. I want to wear three blocks of clothing – torso, legs and feet, with no adornment. Where has this puritan aesthetic come from? I used to be all about short skirts, glitter, gold and colour. Now I want to wear pale jeans, a navy cashmere jumper and black flats all the time. Maybe it harks back to my love of the “uniform” look, which I think comes from Margot Tenenbaum, with her consistent look of tennis dress, fur coat and side-swept fringe. All the glitter and purple used to wear me a bit.

Hopefully my period of austerity will lead to a more defined look but I also hope that soon I will stop limiting my choices to black and navy jumpers! My fashion aim for the year is now to step out in pink, a colour I never, ever wear.

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H&M Spring Looks

Picture: courtesy Nitrolicious

Observer Woman served up some new Spring looks yesterday, and the designers at H&M  clearly saw last year’s Vogue shoot with the soft, gauzy pastels and pops of pink neon. Against all my judgement concerning what suits me and my figure, I really want this layered and puffed pink floral dress. I am suddenly drawn to faded, floral prints in teadress shapes after several seasons of them making no impact on me.

I may check out the new set of Liberty-print dresses from Gap for something similar in a simpler shape, that I can wear the wintry boots that are still necessary despite the bitter cold having seemingly broken here in London.

I really thought this was going to be the year of pared-back Parisian dressing for me but it appears not.

S