Tagged!

Last week tavi tagged me to pick my 3 'perfect life' catwalk looks. It has taken a while because although I keep an eye on what's happening in the designer world, I don't monitor obsessively or follow any particular designers as I know that such things are so far from my life that it can only lead to an appearance of the green-eyed monster! Also, once you start to look, there's so much of it.

Here are the rules:
1. Choose runway pictures from ANY season you like and choose 3 outfits for Day, Evening & Party.
2. Briefly explain why and state the name of the designer & which season the outfit is from.
3. Tag 3 other bloggers once you are done and let them know by posting a comment on their blog.

So first of all, I'm going to cheat! I'm going to pick several looks for each and then maybe nominate a favourite, and secondly I'm going to limit myself to recent seasons, because otherwise I'll be there for years!

Day:



These are Chloe AW 2008, Luella AW 2008, Chloe AW 2008, Topshop SS 2008, H&M AW 2008. Typical me, I prefer the H&M one over the designer ones!

Evening:



These are DKNY AW 2008, Luella AW 2008, Chloe AW 2008. I am loving the combination of navy and black for next season. I can't pick a favourite because I am torn between something close to my regular style (the first one) and what I'm thinking about for the future.

Party:



These are DKNY AW 2008, Chloe SS 2007, DKNY AW 2008. I love cute little mini-dresses, despite rapidly approaching the age when I can no longer pull them off. I think the red one is my favourite because of the colour and the lovely shape.

I tag:
The Clothes Horse
Camille (Childhood Flames)
Annah (fashion art and mess)

Shopping trip outfit

Jacket & vest H&M, skirt Topshop, boots New Look.

ION, I wish the weather would make it's mind up, we're getting several seasons in one day now!

It's possible I have too much time on my hands!

June/July 08 issue of french Vogue or new Bounty advert?!


I shall now go and offer penance for taking the p*ss out of the sacred text. Sorry Camille :-)

A whole 8 hours of summer!

It was sunny today so I took the opportunity to jump into a summer dress when I came back from my daily try-to-prevent-bottom-from-taking-over-the-world walk. Please ignore strap marks and tanlines (I am so classy!).



Dress vintage.

Still no sign of summer :-(

Cardigan Primark, Skirt ebay, vest and tights Topshop, Shoes New Look, bag River Island.

BTW, does anyone else's brain do this? My brain insists that I have items of clothing that I do not and have never owned. It helpfully suggests these non-existent pieces when I am pondering what to wear. The most common misconception is that I have a short slightly military style grey jacket. I have a green cropped jacket, and, somewhere, a pale pink one with pockets and those shoulder strap thingies (sale shopping mistake!), but no grey one. Where did it get this idea? Maybe I tried one on once and the clothing memory area of my mind got fixated on it? I don't know, but it's very annoying!

In other news

I can definitely keep the lovely pink ballerina-ish skirt I was musing about returning due to lack of funds, as I sold the Kate Moss dress I was less keen on in real life on ebay and made a small profit :-)

I have also now discovered that Queen Michelle of kingdom of style has the skirt too, so how could I possibly return something made even cooler by that association?!

Latest style inspiration

This is Portia Freeman, a 19 year old british model. I think her style is really fun and I wish I was young and funky enough to dress like this!

Return to civilization

I am now back in the real world of shopping and gossip :-) This was my outfit on Friday. I was trying to look respectable as I was going shopping for the bank holiday weekend, which included lots of beer for the boyfriend and his pals. I am way, way over the legal age for buying alcohol but I've been asked for ID loads of times recently and always forget to carry any. Unfortunately the outfit has more than a touch of department store shop assistant about it!



Dress old Topshop, cardigan Primark, sandals New Look.

And for anyone confused by the last post, the wearing of orange in the field is not a fashion choice but a health and safety requirement. I was being a marshall at a sporting event the boyfriend was taking part in. My outfits for the weekend consisted of muddy jeans, layers of fleece, wellie boots, and an orange padded coat the size of a hot air balloon, lovely!

Byeeeeee, I'm off to wear orange in a field for the weekend!

An exercise in anti-shopping

On tuesday I went shopping. On wednesday I got my credit card bill. So I am looking at what I bought and trying to convince myself to return things. First is a grey marl dress, that is actually meant to be nightwear. It's basically a very long t'shirt, nothing special but might be a useful basic. There is also a grey vest underneath that again is an unexciting basic:



Item number 2 is this pink/nude skirt. I have this in black as well that I'm saving for A/W and I was thinking of this version for summer. I do love it, but I wasn't sure how I would wear it, especially given that I do not do bare legs above the knee (not a pretty sight!). So I tried to think of summery ways of wearing it, kind of hoping that I wouldn't come up with any and so be able to return it without regret. This is what I came up with, they do all involve tights and so would have to be for chillier summer days, which there are a lot of here in the north east UK:



This has backfired as I now like it even more! It has a knackered ballerina air and makes me think of Degas' Little dancer.



Maybe I should return the black version instead? What d'you think?

Yesterday's man

Or at least yesterday's outfit:



Jacket, long sleeve top, pink top, shoes H&M, jeans New Look, pendant Top Shop. Very unsummery today but it was freeeeezing here :-(

And a very random grey marl dress I saw in the Topshop sale. Not one for me, but I know one or two bloggers who could rock it:

Kate Moss collection update

I have now seen most of the new Kate Moss for Topshop range in real life. I think the quality is generally better than some of the previous stuff, and it was a more cohesive collection than the earlier ones, but I was still a little disappointed.

The pansy dress is pretty nice and the fabric is fine, my only complaint being that it is a little short, and I'm 5'5" so a tall girl wouldn't be able to sit down without flashing her knickers (it's also less orange than it appears in the photo):



The vest I showed in my previous post is less nice in reality, it's more purplish and a little tacky looking. It would still be cool as part of a rock chic type outfit, but I don't think I could pull it off. They didn't have the ruffled blouse.

The biggest disappointment for me was this dress, which I had actually ordered from the website first thing this morning and would have been the subject of a separate post:



The cotton is quite thin and see-through. The colours are not as intense as in the pictures, there are little sequiny things along the trim, and the, very thin, straps have beads all along them and so are not adjustable. It would be nice as a little beach cover-up but doesn't seem worth £45 to me.

The surprise hit for me was this T shirt:



The fabric is very thin but I like the shape and the embroidery is very neatly done and there are no tacky shiny bits. I still didn't buy it though because £25 for a thin T shirt is still a little excessive, especially as I rarely wear T shirts anyway.

Thinking about it some more, I think my feeling of vague disappointment is because I always expect more from the Kate Moss range than I do from Topshop as a whole. Which is partly because I admire Kate Moss's style and so expect something fabulous, but also partly because Topshop hype it so much and put the prices higher than their regular stock. If the prices were the same, I would be happier about only liking 20% of it. Of course really they should design a collection just for me :-)

Happy Kate Moss Day!

The new Kate Moss Summer collection has arrived at Topshop. I think the collections are getting better, there are a few things I would be happy to own this time whereas usually there is one thing I love and everything else is meh. Although I have so far only seen it online, and last time much of the disappointment was with the quality of the materials. So here are some highlights from the website and I will update when I have been to the shop later:

	A classic Kate teadress, £60
	This is obviously a nod to her white Chanel floaty blouse, £40
	There are always some embelished vests in the collections, but I tend to feel the price is a little high for what is, after all, just a vest, and usually in quite thin fabric, £28.

Oooh, pretty!

Although sunny, it is pretty windy and cold today so I took pictures in the conservatory, where it is nice and warm. Yesterday I spent a very frustrating afternoon trying to take Ebay pictures outside in the wind and did not fancy repeating the experience.

Yesterday's outfit:





Top and skirt Topshop, cardigan Primark. As a note to anyone planning to buy this skirt, I usually take a UK 8 in Topshop skirts but I had to buy this in a 6 to get it to fit at the waist, where I think it really should be, rather than on the hip.

And today's (rather dull) outfit:



Top Topshop, Jeans New Look, belt Dorothy Perkins. Also note little pussycat face at bottom left :-)

Should I sell this skirt?

I bought this skirt on Ebay a couple of months ago. When it arrived, it didn't look like the picture and I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I stuck it in the back of the cupboard and forgot about it. I took it out again with the plan of putting it back on Ebay, but when I put it on and styled it for the pictures, I quite liked it (this happens all the time, I should just stick to taking pictures of things on the hangers!). It's got a rock 'n' roll fairy kind of vibe done like this which I quite like. But on the other hand, it's still mad and the fact that the lining could have done with being an inch or so longer bugs me slightly. And I could do with the money. But it's unlikely to make a lot on Ebay anyway (sadly I am not a super-popular seller like Rumi). So what do you think?





Jacket TKMax, vest and skirt H&M, boots Dorothy Perkins.

Rebel without coordination

I'm sure I'm committing a style faux pas by combining brown and black leather (or pleather in the case of the jacket) but hey:



Dress Topshop, top and boots H&M, jacket some random brand from TKmax.

New discovery

A girl named Tavi left a very sweet comment on a previous post, so I went to check out her blog, Style Rookie. It is fab! Great writing style and adorable pictures:



And then I realized that I recognized her and that she is the friend of Stephanie of Fashion Robot's sister who featured in that lovely photoshoot:



And she's 12!!!!!!! How does anyone get to be that cool at 12?! When I was 12, my mum still bought all my clothes so I looked like a little 45 year old woman in coordinating separates from Marks and Spencer! I am full of admiration, but may also need a little lie down to come to terms with the fact that I am old enough to be her mother!

Today I had thought about writing a post explaining that contrary to appearances, I do not shop all the time, that I have bursts of shopping corresponding with my sporadic income as a freelancer. However, I realized that this is not in fact the case. I just change the type of shopping, highstreet, particularly Topshop, when I get paid, Ebay when I have little money, stuff for my other half (with his money) when I am completely broke. My name is Adri and I am a shopaholic :-)



Jeans and tunic Topshop, jacket and sandals New Look.

The jacket has cute little touches like this embroidered patch on the back:

Finally, an outfit post

Today's ensemble:



Dress Topshop, jacket vintage (well, old), sandals New Look, palest legs in the world mine!

The dress is this one (and isn't it irksome that Topshop.com have switched to Flash animations that you can't copy or link, I had to do a printscreen and edit it):



And a bonus one recreating an outfit from the weekend, in which I went to a nice restaurant and had crème brûlée for the first time, yum! I didn't take outfit pictures at the weekend because my in-laws were visiting and I didn't fancy explaining why I needed to take pictures of myself. They think I'm odd enough as it is!



Dress Kate Moss for Topshop, jacket Topshop, green tights Dorothy Perkins, sandals as before.

Although it is sunny here today, it is also quite windy:

Lookylikey

I realized yesterday that my new haircut is pretty much Katie Holmes hair. Which is amusing because my boyfriend has been told several times that he looks like Tom Cruise (which he doesn't, he just has a big nose!). Where's a celebrity costume party when you need one?!



Picture from http://cocosteaparty.blogspot.com/

New hair!

I got my hair cut:





T shirt Topshop, jeans New Look.