Blue sky thinking.

I didn't think there was really any style kudos left for the denim dress to claim, but Oasis have had a bestseller with this one. The flared skirt stays modern by being just above knee length, but the effect is cute, and not "Cowgirl"! My favourite touch is the little crocheted collar-so delicate that it looks like a handmade addition-but I also like the scooped back which stops the whole effect being too sweet and innocent.

I like how easy it is to wear, and yet the design still shows a bit of imagination. I don't shy away from stuff with a bit more of an edge but I was starting to wonder whether some of the more demanding catwalk looks were having too much of a direct influence on the high street, making some things almost inaccessible for women who just want to grab a nice new summer dress to wear for work. In my opinion, Oasis have really nailed the market for summer, with pieces that are totally wearable but never stale.

Italian for beginners- in a weekend, with a phone camera.

The sky is bluer, the drivers crazier, and people really do just casually park their glorious Vespas in the street while they go and get coffee. I went to visit my friend in Milan in March, and I think it would be shameful to have a blog remotely linked to style, and not to have a post about Milan. Even if it is roughly two and a half months on.

Here, with the help of some carefully selected images crucial to your appreciation of Milan, is a potted version of my holiday in the city of style.

 1)-Shortly after I arrived, we drove through a blissfully warm March evening in search of some dinner, and  I decided there and then to move to Italy. This hasn't happened yet, but I can't guarantee it never will. My eyes need more of this blue sky from the passenger side.

2)-Having parked and got some food, we wandered about the balmy streets, and I fell in love.

With someone only a few feet high, shiny, and red. We look so good together, but it was only a holiday romance.

3)-The next day, I found that Prada's European flagship Momma store on Galleria Vittorio, is somewhat intimidating as a fashion Mecca if you show up wearing a jumpsuit, leggings, no makeup, and carrying a rucksack. And to make matters worse, nothing screams "overly impressed tourist"  like someone taking a picture of the shop they're afraid to go into...

(Slightly unnerving fashion statement if you ask me)

4)- Well I can't talk my way out of this one. I 'papped' these Italian guys in a moment of cheeky madness, quite simply because I liked their tanned arms and their cool style. The ultimate in street style photography-quite literally behind the subject's back. If I could speak Italian I would have asked their permission for a proper picture, but I chickened out. Anyway, I love the turn up jeans and sleeveless vest look, on either gender. 

5)- There is a modest bookshop in central Milan, and whilst it does not immediately appear to be anything special, it stocks about three million fashion books. Not only that, it stocks what seems to be the entire world's production of fashion magazines. I didn't have enough suitcase space, weight allowance, or Euros, to buy nearly as much as I wanted. So there's going to have to be a repeat trip. Just warning anyone who has to date me, love me, be friends with me in the future. This shop is going to be a problem. I might go and live there.

6) And finally- despite not really having time to see much of the really cute towns and villages nestling on the hills around the Lake, I discovered from a short evening boat ride that the sun setting on Como is definitely as pretty as I imagined.

Milan, it was a pleasure. 

Jazzy happenings in a jazzy frock...

When I started this blog, life was quite different; in some ways it was quieter. I've been doing a lot more singing lately,and whilst I love blogging, it has taken a backseat due to a whirlwind of rehearsals and learning songs. It has been a shameful 11 weeks or so since I last posted-even if it is only me who has noticed! I still love style and the creativity it affords, but I've only had  the time or inclination to pop in a charity shop when I pass by. This, however, had led to some brilliant one off bargains, and this pink dress, originally from Zara, will always be special because I wore it to sing at Revolucion de Cuba for the first time-from sipping cocktails there, I really didn't think I would ever get the chance to be singing there! I don't really know what other occasion I would wear this dress for other than to sing, because it seems a bit too much for a day in the park, and yet so fitting for the swing songs I am learning. Anyway, whilst the weather is less May/June, and more October drizzle, I'll wear it round my flat feeling rather jazzy...

Why shoe shopping represents my life right now.

Since I last posted, I've been hobbling. In fact I just got up to go to the fridge and winced at the effort of placing my left foot down.
The culprit is a pair of innocent looking flat black patent ballet pumps which I bought a couple of months ago. I would never have imagined they would cause me such pain, but despite nearly falling over in agony if I got up to go to the loo in the night, I procrastinated about buying some more shoes for ages. Firstly, this is because there is so much choice, but also because a lot of what I saw just didn't appeal to me and was neither comfy or stylish. Sometimes one or the other, but never both.
I would find myself to be sort-of-in-the-mood to get some shoes, but then one brief look down the highstreet would put me off, such is the complete absence of anything comfortable but not completely ugly.
It left me wondering why shoes for women are either:
a) Incredibly comfortable and bouncy but absolutely devoid of any flair, whatsoever. Did they TRY to make the shoe look as grim as possible?!
b) Totally flat, dainty, gorgeous and stylish, but with no soles, and instead made what appears to be Medium Density Fibreboard and which offers about as much support as wearing greetings cards on one's feet.

I love to look smart, and well turned out, but I was also starting to limp a bit from all these cute shoes. Something had to give.
Wierdly, all this indecision and mild suffering over footwear got me thinking about some strange parallels with the complete inertia I have been in with my career and personal goals lately. The dainty ballet shoes I bought with high hopes back in February have almost cripped me, just as the career path I anticipated taking in my earlier twenties hasn't panned out. Consequently, my brain is hobbling through the interim whilst I plod on in a job I don't feel right for. My intellect has a limp, and my self esteem has significant aches and pains when I think of my strident, decisive and high achieving contemporaries, powering on in their careers of choice.
Lately, although I love where I work, I am struggling committing to a career path as much as to a damn pair of shoes!
See, I had the limbo of indecision about footwear because I knew this pair of shoes had to tick so many boxes; they needed to solve the pain problem whilst also making me look and feel nice, and it was taking a long time to find something with the right balance of both. I did not know where to turn for a good balance of comfort, flair, and some individuality. Career aspirations are the same.
Perhaps it is my idealistic nature getting to work in situations like this-I have a habit of using more logic more than instinct, until the point where I have absolutely no idea what to do.
 In the end though on Sunday afternoon, I took the plunge with a pair of strange modern bright pink lace ups  with the comfiest support inside. I can wear them with everything but they were not what I had in mind-I would never have gone for them. I realized though, that sometimes life isn't about getting exactly what we had in mind-and that as soon as we stop dwelling on why there isn't enough of what we want, we're open to new things, and they're probably nicer than we thought.
I'm not saying big life decisions are necessarily akin to buying shoes, but I can't help thinking there's a lesson in holding out for the right fit whilst also keeping an open mind. The first step was knowing something was up with my foot and finding something that fits me better. So here's to refusing to be uncomfortable, or even in pain, but being wise enough to accept that sometimes, the right thing isn't in our usual colour.

The Paradox of Choice, applied to my Spring Summer wardrobe...

I just finished reading the Barry Shwartz book, “The Paradox of Choice” and it’s one of the best things I’ve read. Whilst my interest in fashion seems a fairly fluffy thing to apply it to, it got me thinking that the way we choose to dress is basically just another area of life where our brain limits what it thinks it can get in order to minimize stress and anxiety! Sounds weird? Well I’ll explain.

 A new fashion season means loads of new clothes on the high street, but I’m not as fond of this as a style blogger might appear to be. The fact is, whilst I enjoy dressing well and just naturally throwing things together, it becomes stressful at the point where you wander into a big store and are faced with racks of corresponding blouses and shirts all appealingly arranged to reflect how you might put them together. There are a dozen blouses you could put with the new floral skirt and fifty pairs of quirky sandals that would go with them. I look at this vast choice and I have that weird feeling of both aesthetic interest tempered by mild anxiety. Where do you even start?!

I love dressing up, dressing well, and dressing to feel sexy but I can’t seem to do it by the rules of the high street. This is in no small part financial, because for me, there’s only really scope for one or two treats a month (and they have to be low key), and when you walk in any given high street store, if you’re inundated with nice items you could see yourself in, I don’t know how I’d choose one over another. Whilst they are all nice, they don’t justify your £30 more than say, the next nice cardi or dress.

Of course, being natural problem solvers I’m sure humans find ways to make decisions easier for ourselves, by having a ready prepared mental template of what constitutes our favourite things, in any area really- whether this is the cut of a dress, a potential partner’s smile. There are certain things that catch my eye; I have a “type” where fashion is concerned as much as I love guys with brown eyes, but if I had infinite funds then I’d probably be in more of a position to wear all sorts of the new lines in the shops. (One boy with brown eyes is more than enough though!).

The only place I can really go mad is at a carboot sale, where a woman of my size is having a clear out and not charging a bomb for it-finding something unusual for a fiver as opposed to £35 is a thrill I’ll never tire of. So to anyone who wonders why style bloggers exist, and why they don’t go and take photographs of the trees instead, maybe there’s more to it-maybe we just like sharing the style we choose, because it’s not as easy as it seems!

By the way, for anyone who is wondering why we find decisions tricky, what leads is to make the decisions we do, and the unusual conclusions we can draw from it, I highly recommend Shwartz’s book…

 

Lovely weather for ducks...

Music I'm posting to..
Roo Panes, Land of the Living EP-favourite track; Silver Moon. Perfect for a bright chilly day.

This post comes to you from a rainy Saturday afternoon last week, in the Botanical Gardens-the umbrella was not merely a prop! I didn't think it was especially cold out until I tried to send a text in the cafe afterwards, and my hands had gone numb. The perils of the perennial blogger...

On this rain and wind buffeted Isle, there hasn't been a whole lot of choice recently other than to layer up and get as waterproof as possible. Bang on trend? Not so much. Certainly fun though, especially when I was wondering what to wear with my wellies (for a change from trousers) and happened upon this old dress with its pattern of tiny ducks. I was never sure what it was trying to do in a style sense, as it seems to be a cross between an apron, dress and play-suit-but without the shorts. I love how quirky and random it is though, and how it can look just as nice with thermal tights and wellies as it does with sandals; nicer, perhaps, as I don't rate it as much for summer now I've seen it all layered up.

Tiny, tiny puddle-ducks! And a blue cardi; the nice little colour match was a happy accident.

Not cold at this point. Still smiling.

Actually this was a childish desire to see if the wind would lift me up...I confess...

The wind was about to do away with my hat.

Just chillin...literally

All the real ducks have gone in for the winter! Where do they go though?!

Lonely bench and lonely trees.

Work smarts for winter

As the weather is shocking, this post comes to you from the warmth of my front room. I was excited to find a Prada cardi and some Chloe cigarette pants from Oxfam in Chelsea, London,when I visited a friend over the Christmas and New Year vacation. I intend to put up a proper post soon so I can excitedly natter on about my bargains from the last couple of months. Until then here is a little preview...