Advent calendar: 3

It is a cold and awkward day here in London, and I am huddling under blankets. Soon I will watch Mamma Mia on DVD, but for now I am opening my imaginary calendar, whose Tardis-like properties impress me greatly, and finding this delightful jumper. Why don’t I own a sequinned jumper? There is a hole in my wardrobe where this item should be, in a world where everything is fair.

S

***EDIT*** The jumper is from Joseph at My Wardrobe and if you want to spend £420 on it and send it to me via SendSocial, feel free.

Sequinned snood

I saw this and immediately felt drawn to it. It’s from Wallis, a shop I have never given the first thought to, but which is stocking a variety of snoods. Whence this sudden high street enthusiasm?

Snoods make you look like a hermit, forever roaming the dusty paths of 7th century Britain, or something. Sequins are always a good addition. So my new favourite look is Disco Hermit. If only I could find a picture of myself dressed as a wizard because that particular fancy dress costume had quite a lot in common with a 7th century hermit.

Speaking of costumes, I’m off to try and find my Hallowe’en costume.

S

Sunday Nap signposts

• A loves macaroons. A loves fabulous things. Ergo, if I had any money, I would buy her these special Christian Louboutin macaroon boxes from Laduree. FYI, if you ever have a row with her, she can bought back with macaroons. Incidentally, my dear fellow-blogger is on her way up to Edinburgh to enjoy the festival so hopefully she can will report back from there at some point



• I have a love for anything ultra-default, like clean new spiral-bound notebooks and grey sweatshirts. This jumper from French Connection takes my beloved sweatshirt and raises it two sequinned bunnies. This seems ideal for Nap purposes, i.e. hanging around in the house keeping warm.

£45 from French Connection

 

• As I am rather house-bound at the moment I have had plenty of time to do creative pursuits, although I have not really done this and have instead been spending my time watching tv. I did make space in my busy schedule to make something for my boyfriend’s birthday. It was a special birthday but I have no money to buy him fabulous gifts or jet him off anywhere so I made him this poster because he loves vintage-style posters and we have a few of old films like “The Leech-Woman” etc. I bought DVDs of and downloaded loads of disaster films like “The Towering Inferno” and now we have to watch them all in a “Disaster Movies Season” culminating in the amazing-looking “2012; Mayan Apocalypse”.
• I have included the contentious sub-genre of “Alien Invasion inc. Destruction of Landmarks” because I really wanted to get the DVD of Independence Day, one of my all-time favourites. I would also have argued that “Jurassic Park” is a disaster movie but I saw that on tv the other day so I am good for the time being.
• Here you can see the many stages I went through in making the poster, which I did while watching Gilmore Girls, a terrible program. Hopefully none of its themes have seeped into the tone of the poster.

 S

Fashion do

Shiny leggings - now worn by sexy ladies as well as fashion ladies.

I finally escaped the red circles of shame (as arbitrated by my friends and peers) on Saturday by debuting a super-simple Cos knee-length black shift (29 bargainous pounds). I felt really good in it but was quite surprised it got good feedback as it is very minimalist and I thought it might be considered boring.

It’s interesting how our tastes change – blogging buddy LON often notes when we are out and about that my taste from a few years ago now seems to be the popular taste (disclaimer: of women going to the O2 on a Saturday; these are my sartorial descendants apparently), for example, bright colours and gold; the return of “ugly” prints and patterns like leopard; super-high stipper or tranny heels; a trashy 80s vibe; leggings!

Some of these are now staples: leggings aren’t a trend anymore, they are a handy piece of wardrobe underpinning that can even be worn to work and instantly adds a modicum of modesty to outfits. I find it interesting to think of what the default, most mainstream possible outfit for someone my age is, and how it’s different from three, five or ten years ago. It’s not about early-adopters or those who pop up on the myriad streetstyle websites whose mandate is to photograph very slim people wearing ugly tat.

I don’t think it’s fun either to predict trends or try to be above them, but sometimes you do get a very powerful sense of what you yourself want to be wearing next and you just can’t feel comfortable in your own skin until you sort it out. Perhaps this is just a side-effect of our consumerist approach to clothing – I’m definitely trying to find a way to evolve my wardrobe without doing a lot of spending. However, I’ve always felt emotional about clothes but not entirely because it’s part of how you relate to others. I just feel very strange when I’m not matching on the out- and inside. A major trauma of my childhood was being dictated to by my mother on the clothes front (I had a very idyllic childhood okay).

Regarding my 90s-esque shift, it felt really good to hit on an item that made me feel like myself again (but the new me!) I have Cos to thank, this mighty shop, ignoring what everyone else on the high street is doing and going its own way. I’m pretty sure the 90s will be the next decade to make a comeback a la Alexander Wang or Childhood Flames’ minimalist outfit posts:

As a zillion style advisers and mothers have said – wear the clothes, don’t let them wear you. When I reach for the gold, embellished stuff, something in my head now says “step away from the spangles”, and off to Cos I trot.

For what’s it’s worth then, if you’ve read this far, just for me, I’m off heels. I see far too many women tottering about in uncomfortable shoes with mega-heels. It’s taking the fun out of it. Ladies: take care of your spines. Also, don’t wear heels with tight clothes. Obvious, no?

S

Balmain gets spikier

Recent Balmain

 I loved the Balmain collection for Spring/Summer, partly because it was silly and fun instead of being all about “ladylike chic” or urban sportswear (my fashion arch-nemesis as I am not sporty or 5 foot ten) and partly because they made the models look so hot. Sometimes clothes should just make you look hot. The new stuff that just showed in Paris looks equally cool, glitzy and model-enhancing.  According to gossipy blogs like Fabsugar and Fashionologie (the best blog if you are interested in the business side of the fashion industry), there were issues on the front row and the catwalk as huge shoulders tussled for space and pinged off each other, with models having to edge around each other on their way up and down. AMAZING. Imagine commuting in these clothes.

The new season collection actually looks flattering – fluid, sequinned trousers, a drapey jersey top and a super-structured jacket. Obviously it’s not going to be easy to come by items this beautiful on the high street but it’s a look that can be approximated on the cheap and I bet Topshop comes up with a decent copy of those shoulders. Now I have to decide if I want to spend my hard-earned cash on ripped stonewash jeans or sequinned harem pants.

One more thing – doesn’t this  model (Raquel Zimmerman) have a sexy swing in her step?

S

New shiny Balmain

Gold sequins and shoes

As requested by Rebecca on our New Year’s Eve outfit posts, I will now explain the thinking behind my NYE outfit, with my magical Windows Paint skillz.

1. I wanted to make a matte black/shiny texture sort of outfit and so this deeply unarresting black scoop-neck woollen top from Zara was called up. You can just about seeing that I’m wearing a very simple necklace, just one stone on a chain. This part of my outfit is uncharacteristically restrained.

2. This is a beautiful gold sequinned skirt from a shop in Spain. There are both shiny and matte sequins embroidered all over and it seemed fitting for celebrating the new year. I would like to wear it with something less basic up top, possible a grey chiffon top that buttons up to the neck that I already own, but the skirt has a black waistband for some reason and I’m not sure it will work. I’ll have to try it and see!

3. This was a small dinner party so I didn’t wear much makeup and just piled my hair up; I did have a temptation to do a big Cheryl Cole blowdry to match the sparkly skirt.

4. I love these shoes, even though I normally don’t favour peeptoes (I heard a while ago that Anna Wintour said tights and peeptoes were okay again!) I like the elasticated part and the gold stripe down the nice chunky heel, and the general structuralness of the whole. The only criteria they needed to fulfil on this night was goldness.

S

 

New Year’s Eve

I hope you enjoyed yours as much as we enjoyed ours. It has set me up for a good start to 2009. 

S working the black top, sequinned skirt & Faith platform shoes

A close up on Faith platforms - an outfit highlight, for sure

T, faithful blogger friend & fellow partygoer, in Topman blazer, Cos jumper, Urban Outfitters jeans & shoes from Schuh.

P, stylish partypal, rocking black & sequins, top model's own

And yours truly, American Apparel skirt & gold lame boob tube, Topshop top & Vivienne Westwood necklace.

Happy New Year! A

Party skirts

We have started our annual flurry of discussions over party dresses, but this magnificent specimen from Topshop has made me realise the potential for a party skirt. A charcoal or silver vest with this and dressed-down everything else would be so gorgeous. I have a sequinned skirt but it is gold and fails to have shooting stars on it. I want to run to Topshop now and buy it.

S

Skirt, £55, Topshop. Excellent!