The Hunt For A Bargain

Am I the only one thinking that the sales are a bit rubbish at the moment? Admittedly I haven't been out actively hunting down bargains but I've done a spot of online browsing and very few things are tempting me. My card has only come out of my purse twice since the sales started before Christmas: once for a Matalan coat which was half price and divine and once for this beautiful Laura Ashley cardigan.



Char sent me the link to it, knowing that I'm a fan of all things equine. I must admit to a slight chuckle when I saw the product description - it's listed as "dressage cardigan" and trust me, those horses ain't doing dressage! It's quite clearly a hunting scene. Giggles aside though, I had to buy it. Isn't it fab?



I'll quite happily buy nothing else this month if it means owning something this lovely!

Dress - H&M
Cardi - Laura Ashley sale
Triple strap heels - Next via charity shop

Frocks, Frocks, Frocks

I don’t tend to spend much time browsing shops online during the summer.  This isn’t because I do an enormous amount of actual shopping in real shops instead, it’s more due to the fact that I do things in the summer.  My disposable cash tends to get sucked up by weekends away, holidays, tickets to the theatre and the ballet and the cinema, and the ever-present book-buying habit.  Then before you know it I’m moaning about there being too much month for my money and the cute frock I’ve seen gets relegated to the “look for it on ebay in six months” list rather than the “buy it NOW” list.

Winter is a different story though.  I don’t turn into some sort of SAD-affected hermit who never goes out, but the fun jaunts are definitely not as common.   When there are more funds available, I tend to shop a little bit more.   Actual shopping in the winter is hideous though.  Unless you can bunk off work for the day then you get stuck in the weekend Christmas shopping crush (which seems to start in about October) and are beaten around the legs with rogue rolls of wrapping paper until you want to stomp off home in a strop.  Oh, and don’t forget the hideously unpleasant contrast of boiling hot shops and minus temperatures outside and having to constantly strip off layers of coats, hats, scarves and gloves before you spontaneously combust on the ground floor of Primark. 

I would so much rather sit at home with a large mug of coffee and idly browse websites until something catches my eye.  And dresses always catch my eye.  Having to sometimes pay p&p is a fair trade-off for avoiding the shops in the winter as far as I'm concerned.

This is an pheasant print frock. Yes, you heard me.  Pheasants.  How amazing is that?! My #wardrobezoo is sorely lacking in the birdy-ducky thing (it's a family term) department.

Speaking of ducks... DUCKS!  How cute is this Joules beauty?

Woman cannot live by wardrobezoo alone though.  Well, not this one anyway.  I have quite the weakness for frocks that resemble soft furnishings.  Honestly, I'm not being sarky here.  I love my dresses made from duvet covers and curtains and this one reminds me of some very floral cushions that my Nan had.

I can be sensible when I try though. This is both simple and rather beautiful.

And this might seem like a super straightforward black frock (those lucky souls who can wear the colour will probably be drawn to the berry version) but just think how lovely it'd look with any of my collection of coloured opaque tights.

I'm Going On A Boot Hunt

Last Friday I was in coat hunting mode. I'm still drawing up the shortlist of duffel coat options but I may well have a cape on the horizon, courtesy of Char's wardrobe clearout. Yay!


This weekend I'm on a boot hunt. It may shock you to read this but I only own one pair of knee high boots. Yes, that's right. Me, all round shoe-lover (although not Crocs or Uggs. Never those.) and proud owner of far too many pairs of footwear to count without wincing, only owns one pair of boots. And they were third hand. I have a few pairs of ankle boots, although not that many. My basic problem is that I'm a magpie. A shoe magpie. I'd come up with some amusing compression of that but it'd be *cough*shagpie*cough* and that conjures up something entirely different.

Ahem.

I like shoes. I'm easily drawn to colourful heels and pretty flats. You just have to look at my Irregular Choice collection for proof of that. As much as I appreciate a good pair of boots, they're never top of my shopping list. Leather is lovely and I will go and stroke it in the shops but I'll always buy the impractical green heels instead.  Shopping for shoes online is safer: I'm less prone to distraction by sparkles.

  This continued overlooking of boots is especially odd because I was rather heavily influenced in my formative years by this look:

(picture borrowed from essbeevee - read about Sarah's own knee high boot traumas)

I love Buffy and her dodgy late 90's outfits.

Back then, I didn't have the legs for short skirts and boots. Things are better since I lost the weight but I still have issues. I know I've mentioned this whilst beefing on about welly shopping but I have out of proportion wide calves. This seems to be common amongst the 5'2' women of my acquaintance but we're going to have the last laugh – I've been assured it means we will cope well in a famine or zombie apocalypse. Ha! In your face, skinny legged people!

I was rattling back through old blog photos recently and came across this one.  

Hey there super short skirt and boot combo! I clearly can wear this look, I just need to work a bit harder to find the boots than my skinny legged friends do.  I'm prepared to put the effort in though. I need more pairs and they aren't going to magically tapdance their way over to me.  I'll have to search for them. 


I really want these:

And these are a longer version of the H&M ankle boots I've just bought, so they're definitely appealing to me.  I do love a heel on a knee high boot.

Or I may just give in to those magpie tendencies and get these instead. Shiny, shiny.

Winter Coats

There are lots of things I love about this time of year. Coats are one of them.  I'm not alone in this.  A quick look through my blog roll is showing up all sorts of posts talking about autumn/winter clothing and coats seem to be top of the list for a lot of people. I love it. I can happily debate the merits of colour vs pattern, tweed vs fur, fitted vs casual, for ages. Pockets, buttons, collars, trim: they’re all much more fun on winter coats than they are on summer jackets.

I never used to be able to join in with these conversations. Roll back to 2009 and I had one boring black winter jacket that had lasted me about four years and I just couldn’t understand why people had or needed 47 coats. I mean, black goes with everything, right? One black coat should do nicely. Then I suddenly saw the light. I don’t know why or how it happened but now the understairs cupboard and hat stand in my room are overflowing with coats and jackets of all sizes, shapes and colours. Look! This isn’t even all of them, just the ones I’ve managed to take photos of.

L - Posh tweedy. R (top to bottom)- vintage via Vix's ebay shop, H&M via ebay, French Connection

L - vintage Aquascutum. R (top to bottom) - H&M via ebay, Kookai via car boot sale, Very.co.uk

It may seem as if I’ve got most of the bases covered: I have tweed, smart, colourful, faux fur, leather, vintage and cosy coats already. There’s always room for one (or two) more in the coat cupboard though. As with most of my clothing purchases, I'm always in search of value for money when looking to add a coat to my collection. That doesn't have to mean stalking ebay and charity shops and totally ignoring the High St shops. I'm always happy to pay decent money for the perfect thing. Case in point, the tweedy coat in the first picture. I adore it and don't care how much it cost.

On my current wishlist are the perfect duffel coat (because I always did want to be Paddington Bear) and the perfect cape (because I can’t be a bear all the time and maybe I can pretend to be a tall, glam cape-wearer instead). I intend to hit the shops good and hard until I find them.

This looks like it could be a winner

This is cute and sparkly.  Love it.

Somebody hold my handbag for me.  I've got some serious trying on to do!

 

Tweed & Corduroy

Let me tell you about a little quirk of fate that I like to call Alex's Law. It goes like this: you get vouchers for a shop and immediately there is NOTHING in there that you want to buy.

(Subsection 1 of Alex's Law: you often get vouchers for shops that you don't venture into very often.)

I won some Next vouchers a year or two ago and despite the fact that everyone else in the world (and blogland) had just bought an amazing bag/shirt/pair of shoes from Next, there was absolutely nothing I wanted to buy when I stepped foot in there. I think I shopped on a bad day - it seemed to be all sensible workwear and I just don't do workwear.  I don't know how this happens to me but I must have bad shopping karma or something.  Bet there was tons of lovely stuff in there the week after.

I didn't wait that long.  I cannot be patient with vouchers.  I know full well that the sensible thing to do is leave them in your purse and spend them another day/month/year if nothing catches your eye at first, but I have to spend them STRAIGHT AWAY.  So after flouncing round the store moaning a lot, I bought this jacket in a fit of pique and then begrudged the thing for ages. Really begrudged it. Poor jacket.

(I know this is odd behaviour.  Subsection 2 of Alex's Law: vouchers make you act like a crazy lady.)

I wore it on Tuesday and, y'know what, I really love it.  Tweed with wooden buttons, a cord collar and elbow patches - it could practically have been designed to appeal to me.  I am going to wear it a lot this autumn.  Why did I hate it for so long? I refer you to subsection 2 above.  The craziness clearly took a long time to wear off...

I bought these beauties at Bestival.  So cute!

Jacket - Next

Tshirt & cardi - H&M

Jeans & scarf - Dorothy Perkins

Brogues - M&S Limited Collection

Earrings - Wolf and Moon

Half Preppy, Half...Not

I like to try and tone down the madness slightly for work. Whilst I was very definitely in a silly dressing-up sort of mood yesterday, I felt that perhaps toile patterned shorts and rather high shoes might tip over the edge into "wtf are you wearing today, Alex?" territory unless I made at least a partial concession towards sensibleness. Hence the shirt and jumper combo. Nothing says sensible workwear like a shirt and jumper, right?

(if you're wondering where my face has gone, well it looked atrocious in ALL of the photos, so I'm hiding it)

But really we should just be talking about the shorts. TOILE PATTERNED SHORTS, EVERYONE!  I spotted them in Primark at the weekend and made a positive beeline for them.  They were the last pair on the rail and therefore clearly destined to be mine. Who cares that they're two sizes too big? I actually consider this a bonus as it means they sit much lower down and end up being a respectable length rather than hotpants.  You all know how much I love toile.  Love it.

Jumper - H&M

Shirt - Gap, stolen from my brother

Shorts - Primark

Shoes - Next

Because I had to take my outfit photos at home for once, you get bonus cat photos.  Oscar is the inquisitive type so naturally he likes to see why I'm posing in front of the shed door. This is us saying "Mrow" to each other.

Mostly he pretends he's still a kitten and chases his tail on the lawn.  Is this not the most amazing photo ever?

The Long and Short Of It

I remember, not so very long ago, that I was griping loudly on here about shorts not suiting me. But I find blogging is very good for making you expand your fashion horizons. I took the plunge and bought a pair in the Gap sale last year.

I was an immediate convert. Then I went nuts and bought the infamous H&M ones in both red and navy.

And I've even plucked up the courage to wear my shortest and most madly patterned pair.

Want to see my new pair? I went bold with these ones. Prepare yourself for some orange shorty goodness:

They're definitely drawing comments from the people at work! It must be the colour of them because everyone should be used to me getting my legs out by now. I do love a bit of orange.

Shorts - George @ Asda sale
Top - Matalan
Cardi - H&M via charity shop
Shoes - Dolcis, ancient
Wristy thing - silk scarf
Ring - Next sale

Mellow Yellow

Oh I was having woes trying to work out an outfit last night. Does anyone else find it hard to get dressed sometimes? I wonder if I'm thinking about it too much or if my clothing choice really is that limited. I tried on about 60% of my wardrobe and nothing looked right, so I went to bed in a huff and chucked this on this morning instead. It was discarded last night due to the shirt being far too long and looking weird but it turns out all I needed to do was knot it up a bit.

Ponytail attempts to take over my face...



Shorts - H&M (less glamorous version of my red pair)
Shirt - Matalan, courtesy of a giftcard won on Jen's blog
Shoes - Next (glad I used a voucher on them as the exact same shoes are now in Primark for about 1/3 of the price!)
Ring - New Look
Necklace - H&M, present from Char

It might have been hastily chucked together but it's nice and summery and, I think, a good alternative to floaty frocks in the sunny but slightly windy weather we're enjoying at the moment. I braved the breeze to have a blissful half hour tea break outside today. Book, homemade apple flapjack and sunshine - a little slice of morning perfection.