It's Black and White Really

I was anti-leggings for a long time. That was the side-effect of being born in the 80s: you grew up wearing wildly patterned leggings and oversized tshirts and it wasn't the best of looks. Definitely not something I wanted to reprise in later life, so when they came back into shops a few years ago, I wasn't a fan.

Then I became a total convert. Of plain black ones, anyway. I have loads of long jumpers and too-short dresses (dunno how, I'm only 5'2!) and they were perfect to chuck on underneath. But then I bought a house and did all the redecorating whilst wearing my comfiest clothes. Et voila, all my leggings ended up covered in paint and I had no money left to buy new clothes. Wah wahhhh.

Pertz came to my rescue recently and asked if I wanted to try out a new pair of leggings to review. Obviously I did! Can't exactly get away with paint-stained ones outside the confines of my own home, can I?  I dusted off a dress that is verging on far-too-short (in its defence, it is from the Petite range and I'm at the tall end of that) and gave them a whirl.

Now I must admit that initially I was a bit "oh god, they're shiny" when I got them out of the packet as I was expecting cotton ones for some reason. I wasn't expecting to love them but it took about two seconds for them to win me over. They're so comfy! Also I won't bore on too much about my weight issues at the moment but suffice to say I am not content with my size right now and my problem area is always, always my dreaded stomach. These leggings are cunningly designed and cut to suck all that in without killing you and the fabric smooths over any potential cellulitey areas too. Yoicks! I might have fat legs but they look considerably better when wearing these!

Dress - Dorothy Perkins
Leggings - Pertz
Cardi - Gap
Heels - Irregular Choice (a few years old but you can find similar here)

The Summer Party

Last Friday saw the work summer party arrive. Planned by moi and my ever-awesome pal and colleague Catherine, it was a bit of a new venture for us. We have our respective Christmas parties for staff and volunteers but this was a chance to have a great big mid-year thank you for all our fabulous team and get all the staff and volunteers together in one place. We had a cracking year in 2014 and this year is shaping up to be even better (fingers tightly crossed for the next four months, obvs) so it definitely seemed like party time.



Look at that lovely lot! Volunteer management is not the easiest thing in the world but it's very good fun at times like these. The amount of conversations I had about petticoats was fantastic!

We had a photographer there to record the evening which was amazing (only partly because he captured the funniest photo ever of my boss) but on the unfun side, I loathe all the photos of me and have basically been looking through them in absolute horror about how much my arms look like ham shanks. 

Note to self, don't stand between a glam babe of a professional singer and a glam babe who's the pretty brunette at work.

Oh well. My new dress is nice, right? And petticoats and snazzy green heels always make me feel spiffy, even if the pics don't reflect that.

We even had our own bakeoff competition but I was so busy hostessing and compering that I didn't get any cake. WAAHHHHHHH. This is most unfair.

I made one, mostly so that the fellow special-needs-food people could have something to eat, but I didn't get any of that either. Instead I got to do some tidying up and then get changed out of my party frock and go and scrub the loos with Catherine. Oh, it's a glamorous life...

Sparkly frog shoes one minute, scruffy Converse the next...

Dress - Lady V London
Petticoat - Vivien of Holloway
Party shoes - Irregular Choice

A Wedding

I'm still merrily attempting to catch up on all the stuff I haven't blogged about recently. Here's something fun that happened: my Dad got married!

This is how me, bro and sister in-law occupy ourselves when waiting for the ceremony to start.



T'was a lovely, relaxed sort of day, very much in the spirit of the happy couple who are health-food shop owners and practice all sorts of alternative therapies as well as being into Buddhism and chanting and suchlike (well Janet does the chanting, Dad tends to scoff at it!) . They're a right pair of hippies. As you can imagine, a huge white wedding with a million guests isn't really their sort of thing.

They had a lovely ceremony in the local registry office with an intimate bunch of family and friends and then off we all trouped for an absolutely amazing meal at a local Nepalese restaurant. I think all the guests ate their own bodyweight in curry. I certainly did.



Check out Janet's headdress! She was a bit worried everyone would think it was too wacky but I think we can all agree that it's brilliant, yes? Not in the slightest bit traditional but very her. Created by Tracy Caroline Lewis - her Facebook page is fab!




My outfit was the backup plan. I'd intended to make a dress and I did, but as you may have seen in the blog post about it, things didn't entirely go to plan and there was no way I was wearing it for the big day. So instead I plumped for this green number which I adore but have oddly only worn once or twice.




Dress - random seller on Amazon
Blazer - Warehouse via Oxfam
Bracelet - shame on me, I can't remember. H&M?
Frog heels - Irregular Choice

All The Patterns

We've all been there, haven't we?

You put on what you think is a lovely outfit, prance around in it feeling fab all day, merrily snap some outfit photos and then look at them on your computer screen only to discover that someone has replaced your face with a moon.

An actual moon. With really unflattering specs on.

And although you are still getting used to said specs because they're much bigger than your other ones, they managed to look all fun and vaguely trendy when you took photos of them before. They don't look that bad in the mirror. So how has the camera made them transform your face into something rather terrifying?

Ok, ok, perhaps you haven't all been there. This is probably something only familiar to glasses wearers. The fact I had no makeup on didn't help either. But still, it's VERY UNFAIR. I've only got one tolerable outfit photo out of the whole bunch.

I nearly scrapped the whole lot but the new (old) coat is too gorgeous not to share and I'm rather fond of some of the #wardrobezoo prints that have sneaked in on the other parts of my body.

Coat - vintage, via The Vintage Corner
Top - Red Herring, Debenhams
Skirt - H&M
Cardi - TK Maxx
Shoes - Irregular Choice

The joys of doing some ironing for the first time in months: you discover all sorts of amazing things you'd totally forgotten about! Also plenty of things that you realise you're never actually going to wear...

And on that note, if you're a similar size to me and are in the mood for swapping some of those things in your wardrobe that you never quite get round to wearing, I'm signing up for Janet and Steph's Big Blog Clothes Swap. It's not just clothes, everything is considered: shoes, accessories, bags. I'm so looking forward to it!

Wombling Around

New Year means that it's time to bust out all your new Christmas gifts, right?

Well, behold the Wombles frock and amazing shoes!



Char made me this utterly fabulous frock for Christmas - isn't she amazing?? I have wanted some Wombles fabric foreverrrrrrr but it's hard to find. I've got a Wombles pillowcase but that ain't gonna magically transform into a dress, is it? This is beautiful and it's green. Me = delighted.



ALL THE WOMBLES!



My brother and sister-in-law got me these gorgeous Irregular Choice heels. They pick epic presents.



Perhaps a slightly lively choice for first-day-back-to-work heels but it's January and frankly, we need all the additional sparkle we can get.


Dress - handmade by Char
Cardi - Tu
Heels - Irregular Choice Mostaccio

Can Thermals Ever Look Good?

I work in a very old building. Now this has many upsides and is mostly awesome but also comes with some rather large downsides. The main one is that the heating system is 130 years old and it doesn't cover my office (aka the cave. The cold, dark cave). Bah.

There are occasions in the chillier months when the clock hits 3pm and we're all still sitting there wearing coats, hats, scarves and gloves because it takes that flipping long to warm the place up with just a little electric heater.



I've been threatening to bring in a sleeping bag to cosy up in this winter but I don't think that's entirely appropriate for work.  Also, tricky to get in and out of when the door needs to be answered and I'm clumsy enough as it is. (Just got my foot stuck in my handbag handle and went flying approx 10  minutes ago)

I may have hit upon the ideal solution to office chilliness with these thermal denim trousers that Damart sent me.



Now I know thermals are not the most interesting of items usually but I'm honestly not just reviewing these for the sake of it. I was genuinely intrigued to see how trousers of all things could be thermal and look nice - this type of clothing is notorious for leaning heavily towards the frumpy old woman side of things.



Not so with this pair though! They look just like a normal pair of jeans, don't they? Happily for me, they have the advantage of being indigo (my favourite wash) and straight leg (my favourite cut). They're surprisingly thin so I was curious as to how they'd keep me warmer than a normal, thicker pair of jeans. Well, they've certainly done that. They are toasty. I am most pleased.

Also they look nice with my mega fun shoes. I don't often wear light coloured heels but these are great. Business at the front:



Party at the back:





Blazer - Warehouse via Oxfam
Jeans - c/o Damart
Top - Ruby Rocks
Shoes - Irregular Choice Baby Beauty

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A Gaudy New Coat Thing

I'm not going to entitle this blog post "Two ways to wear a skater dress" because I'm sure you're all more than capable of dressing yourselves by now and can do it perfectly well without my help. Should you require it, well, I tend to wear my dresses by, y'know, putting them on my body. Not exactly a novel technique but it serves me well.

Having said that, a plain black skater dress is undeniably a most useful thing to own.  Et voila, worn here with my lovely green hedgehoggy jumper and favourite Mel flats for a day at work.



Then glammed up a tad. If by glamming up, we mean wearing something that could conceivably be classed as either a boxing robe or dressing gown. I shall christen it the Kimono Coat. Kimoat? Comono? Nahhh.



It's reversible! Bit more boxing robe-ish when worn with the black outside...



I'll stick to it the other way round I think. Pretty! Not dressing gowny at all, honest.

 So many different Flick Flack colourways but these are still my fave.


Painty hair - occupational hazard at the moment
Dress - H&M
Kimono thingy - Oxfam
Hedgehog jumper - ASOS
Flats - Mel
Shoes - Irregular Choice Flick Flack

Yay, Coats!

I've been buying more coats. Can't help myself.



Check this one out though! Cute, no?

I'm assuming it's last year's Florence & Fred as I bagged it from a charity shop last month and it doesn't really look as if it's ever been worn. One person's cast-off is another person's treasure though and I'm super pleased with it.  It's like a longer version of the H&M jacket I've got (which you can spot in this post, along with my many many other coats) and I've always wished that was a bit longer.  I may even complete the charity circle and donate that one now I've got this one.

Tis a size too big but I always prefer my winter coats that way. It means I can chuck massive chunky cardigans on underneath.



Also sequinned skirts.  Yep, I wear it to work.  It's not like I've ever got a more suitable occasion for it and it might as well get some wear!





Coat - Florence & Fred via charity shop
Cardigan - New Look
Skirt - H&M sale
Top - Ruby Rocks
Boots - Irregular Choice
Necklace - Tatty Devine, present

The Last Days of Summer

Fellow fashion bloggers, I love you, I really do, but sometimes I feel very left out.

You're all prancing around in coatigans and chunky boots and big old scarves and sleeveless coats, kicking up leaves, drinking pumpkin spice lattes and stocking up on conkers to ward off the spiders. Me? Well...



I love autumn, don't get me wrong, but I also love a bargain. When you see a beautiful summer frock in the sale and can't resist buying it, you then have to wear it straight away. This is the law.  It would be criminal to shove it in the wardrobe until next year.



Overseeing a random Twitter convo (as you do), I clicked on a link to the clearance section of the Boden website to be all nosy about what dresses they were oohing over. Not somewhere I've ever really considered shopping before cos, well, I'm poor and Boden stuff is undoubtedly lovely but quite expensive. Or so I thought! Turns out they're one of the few retailers who actually discount their sale items properly (hurrah! More places should do this) and so this exceptionally pretty Matilda dress was mine for the bargainous price of £17.60.



I hereby christen it my cheerleader dress.  I'd make a terrible cheerleader.  Huge fan of Bring It On but lacking the necessary pep and enthusiasm about life to cheer properly.



In similarly summery spirit, I'm still wearing sandals. Ish. They're summer shoes anyway. No winter boots here, not yet anyway.





'Matilda' Dress - Boden
Cardi - Primark
Heels - Irregular Choice, present from Char
Necklace - won in a blog giveaway ages ago