Products of the Month - October

Look! It's me! In a video! Oooh technology!

Why don't you love me?

The last few days have been spent preparing for, and then attending Tash's parent's 25th wedding anniversary, (which took place yesterday at a seriously posh old manor house in Staffordshire), a seriously fabulous affair that involved lots of singing, dancing and generally getting more than a bit drunk. I wore a pink French Connection dress, which I am in LOVE with - I wish I could wear it every day. Might have to post a photo of it at some point - I rarely do outfit posts, but I'll make an exception for this dress, for it is simply beautious. Tash also wore excellent shoes, not sure I've got a photo of them, but I may have to track one down as they were epic.

Anyway, while I'm still recovering from my lovely (drunken) weekend, I thought I'd do a quick review of the Topshop tattoos. I posted about them in May and have finally managed to get my hands on some (they didn't have any in the Liverpool store so I had to buy them online). Actually, the ones I posted about previously are quite different to the ones that are currently available to buy in stores. When I posted back in May, there was maybe four or five different tattoo sheets available to buy; some just contained one large image while others had a few smaller ones. Topshop seems to have improved upon these initial designs, as there is now a pack available that contains three sheets of tattoos with lots and lots of different designs to choose from.

Temporary Tattoos, Topshop, £5

These are quite obviously Chanel-inspired, even moreso than the first batch they brought out, which did feature swallows and chains etc, but were still quite simplistic. These ones, however, are a lot more detailed and pretty, with lots of different 'bracelets' and jewelled charms to customise them with.

I wore two last weekend in London - a flower design on my foot and a bracelet around my wrist, and I was fairly impressed; the designs are very pretty and I especially like the little highlights of white in the 'jewels'.

Floral foot

Charm bracelet

Charm bracelet (other side)

When it comes to applying them, it's just the standard process of holding a damp cloth to the back of the design for about 30 seconds and waiting for it to lift off the backing paper and stick to your skin. Very easy. What was tricky though, and I imagine this would be the case for any other similar tattoos, was applying the bracelet tattoo, as you had to kind of wrap it around your wrist and hold it in place so that it didn't slip. It would probably have been easier if I'd gotten someone to help me, but of course, I never do things sensibly. You can also see, in the first picture of the charm bracelet, just above the star charm, where the two ends of the chain overlap a bit messily - I couldn't quite work out how to get them to line up, but again, I'd imagine if you had someone to help you it would be quite do-able.

Now the pictures above were taken straight after I applied the tattoos, and as you can see, the charm bracelet had already started to split a bit. They don't have great staying-power; don't expect them to last much longer than a day, especially not in the heat; I applied mine on the Friday afternoon and by the Saturday afternoon, the one on my foot had mostly been rubbed away and faded. I wore this swallow design on my wrist for the party yesterday and it seems to have fared a little better;

although, you can see that it's started to fade and the edges are rubbing away a bit.

All in all, while they don't last very long, I do still really like them; I think they're ideal for one-off wear, such as a night out. The designs are lovely, the pack has a really good range of images to choose from and they're only £5 - winner!

I've not changed my mind about permanent tattoos; I'd never get one as I'm certain I would eventually get bored and regret it, but I am a big fan of the whole temporary thing; there's just so many possibilities! Plus, I like the slightly rock and roll vibe they give off (let's be honest here, I'm about as rock and roll as Alvin and the Chipmunks, but just humour me, ok?).

So what do you think? Will you be sporting some Topshop tatts this summer?

from now on you can call me Mystic Meg

Ok, now I don't want to show off here, but, well I'm going to - I totally predicted this.

Back in March, I did a post about the Chanel temporary tattoos and suggested that high street stores such as Topshop and Urban Outfitters might take inspiration from them and bring out their own ranges. And they have!!!

This clearly means that I am psychic.

Except, not really, obviously, because this is just how fashion works - high street stores always copy take inspiration from the high-end designers. But still, I'm quite excited that the two shops I mentioned are the ones that have actually done it. I just had a quick browse through some other online stores (Miss Selfridge, New Look, H&M and ASOS) and can't find any other tattoos, though I'm sure they'll follow suit soon.

The Topshop ones are very clearly inspired by Chanel; some of the designs include birds (now I'm no ornithologist, but I'm pretty sure they're swallows), flowers and strips of chains. Funnily enough, the Chanel tattoos also had swallows, flowers and strips of chains. However, the Chanel ones were very pretty and feminine whereas I'd say the Topshop ones are little more edgy and kind of 'rock and roll' (if that's the right way to describe them - hopefully you can see what I mean from the pictures) There's five different sets available (some packs contain several small tattoos and some just contain one large one), and they're priced between £4 and £6.50.

images from Topshop.com

The Urban Outfitters tattoos are very different. Firstly they can only loosely be described as 'tattoos' as they're more like body stickers. They remind me a bit of those crystal tattoos everyone went mad for in the late 90s/early 00s. There's also only two designs available; a butterfly and a bunch of flowers. They're very pretty and sparkly and they're available in white, black and gold - I can see them being popular with festival-goers. Only problem is, Urban Outfitters have done their usual trick of going "right, new product, very pretty, quite eyecatching actually. Let's price it at something ridiculous!" The butterfly costs £14 and the flowers cost £18.

£18 for a glittery sticker?!

Sorry Urban Outfitters, but you just lost me. I know the Chanel ones were about £50, but there was loads of designs in the pack. And they were frikkin' Chanel! Anyway, maybe I'm just being a bit of a tightwad, what do you think? Would you pay £14 and £18 for these babies?

images from UrbanOutfitters.co.uk

Anyway, next chance I get, I'm heading to Topshop to get my hands on a pack - I'm particularly drawn to the chains. What do you think? Will you be sporting temporary tattoos this summer? And which do you prefer Topshop or Urban Outfitters?

Top of the shops (part 2)

We've already established that I'm a big Topshop fan. We also know that I'm obsessed with makeup. So now that Topshop's brought out it's own makeup range, I have to admit, I am a bit worried that any money I ever earn from this point onwards is quite likely to go on cute eyeshadows, nail varnishes and lipsticks.

I went in yesterday just to have a little look. I'd read a couple of reviews and people were saying mixed things, so I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but I have to admit, it's a really good little collection. There's a great range of products; lipsticks and glosses, eyeshadows, blushers, mascaras, bronzers, highlighters, pretty much everything you'd need really. The colour selection is varied and unusual, especially amongst the eyeshadows and nail varnishes, which I'm very excited about. I read somewhere that there wasn't many lipstick colours to choose from, which is true, I think there's only six, but they're all really good colours and there is also a selection of lipglosses and 'polishes' which seem quite heavily pigmented and vibrant so there is a lot of lip colours available, they're just not all in the form of lipsticks.

The prices are very reasonable, everything is (I think) £10 or less and most items are around £5/£6. You can see the full collection here on the Topshop website.

One of the big selling points is the packaging, which is really cute and very Topshop; trendy but in a kind of whimsical way - everything is decorated in sketchy polka dots and stripes. From what I can gather, there's a kind of basic collection and then there's extra stuff, which is in the SS10 Trend section, so I guess they'll keep adding to the range each season.

I allowed myself to buy one item, but there's no doubt I'll be buying more very soon. I decided to go for an eye Crayon in Sun Shower, which is part of the SS10 Trend stuff. It cost £7 and is absolutely gorgeous.

Not a great shot, but I just wanted to show the cute little bag it came in!

Here's a better image, from the website. There's also a silver eye Crayon, called Moonshine, which I'm also tempted to get.

The Crayon can be used as an eyeliner or an all over shadow, I'm wearing it today and I'm very impressed. Sometimes 'crayon' products like this can be a bit too hard and drag when you apply them, but this is really soft so it goes on and blends very easily. The colour pay off is excellent and it gives a really gorgeous metallic sheen. It does crease a bit, but all products of this nature do tend to crease anyway, and it's lasted all day, so all in all, I'm really pleased with it.

Hope you can get an idea of the colour from this picture - I blended it a bit, but you can build it up to get a more intense, gold effect. It's lovely!

These are some of the other products I've got my eye on;

Glitter in Gilt, Eyeshadow Duo in Oopsy Daisy and Nails in The Big Easy

All product images from Topshop.com.

Top of the shops (part 1)

So I know the prices are going up at an alarming rate (oh hello cotton tee-shirt, what's that? £45 you say? Bye then."), and it is probably the number one retail haunt for every other person in the UK who wears clothes, but Topshop really is one of my favourite stores. Ok, maybe I should be more adventurous and shop more in vintage shops, or markets or charity shops or quirky boutiques or just make my clothes out of stuff I find lying around the house, like bin bags and sponges, but quite frankly I haven't got time for all that and anyway, you mad little spaniel, sponges are unhygienic. But, you see, with Topshop, there is always something in there that I want to buy. Always. I suppose this is partly because the one in Liverpool is now so frighteningly massive that there has to something amongst the endless number of jeans and tops and spangly pieces of nylon and jersey dresses and fancy shoes and embellished blazers and magical, whimsical, cheeky little trinkets that I want to by. It's just simple maths really. But you know what else is simple maths? That fact that I'm just a poor boy girl from a poor family and try as I might, I can't get the Topshop staff to give me stuff for free. So I only ever go in there if I've just been paid or there's a sale on.

Fortunately for me, Topshop just had a ma-HOO-sive sale so I managed to buy quite a few little lovelies without having to sell my little sister into slavery to be able to afford them. (not that I'd ever do that...)

Here's what I bought;

A really big ring!

These earrings that look like the wings of a fly! (In a nice way, not in a dirty, disease-spreading way)

This top - nude and purple and polka dots and a big bow all in one?! Yeah, I know, this is the best thing ever.

[NB Every time I post pictures of myself on here, I seem to have straightened my hair. I fear that I'm going to get into trouble with the trading standards people for false advertising. Honestly, I promise, I am a little curly girl most of the time!]

I also bought some purple tights, but you don't need to see a picture of them, they're just tights that are purple.

And all this cost me less than £20! Sale joy! Yesssss!

I realised that the eternal student inside me will always go straight to the sale section of a store first, because, well why wouldn't you? Sales are so frequent nowadays, that it only takes a few weeks for an item to go from full price to having a big red sticker on the label saying "50% off" (oh how I love those red circles). Some people hate sales, because they're messy and sometimes it's just lots of crap that nobody wanted, hence the reason why it now costs 20p, but if you have patience, you can find some marvellous stuff for a fraction of the price. And there really is nothing better than finding something you love and it only costing you a few quid.

So, with all this in mind, I thought I'd put together a guide of how to do the sales properly. Most of it's probably quite obvious, but hopefully some of it might come in useful.

The little curly girl's guide to surviving and succeeding in the sales.

Preparation.

Once you know you're going to the sales, you must make a few decisions beforehand;

- What will you wear? Once you get into full-scale sale madness, things get hot. And then you feel mighty silly for wearing your favourite ski suit don't you? So think comfortable, lightweight and also, easy to change in and out of quickly. If you're going to be trying loads of stuff on, you really don't need to be wearing clothes with lots of buttons or shoes with lots of laces etc. Also, it's worth wearing nice underwear, because firstly, the stuff you try on generally looks better if you're wearing a well-fitting bra and good pants and secondly, there is nothing more depressing than seeing yourself in the changing room mirror, which is unflattering at the best of times, wearing old, mismatching undies. We've all been there.

- How much are you going to spend? Yes, everything is much cheaper than usual, but it's still easy to get carried away. Set yourself a limit and unless you find something that is literally going to change your life forever, do not go over it.

- Is there something specific you want to buy? If you're looking to buy something in particular, for example a coat or a dress, it's worth looking on the website first, to see what's available, that way, you know exactly what you're looking for when you go in. I bought my current coat in the Oxford Street Topshop in January - the sale was INSANE but because I already knew what I wanted, it was much easier to find. Even if you're just going in for a browse, it can be a good idea to have a think beforehand about what you want/need in your wardrobe, otherwise, when you get there, it can be a bit overwhelming and you end up either buying stuff you've already got or leaving with nothing.

The scary part.

- So you've arrived at the sale. There is a sea of frantic women grabbing at garments while dead-eyed sales assistants rush around attempting to tidy. DON'T PANIC! Yes it's mad, yes it's messy, but there are wonders to be found. Be systematic. If there are lots of rails, start at one end and work your way through. The key to sale shopping is patience. If you look properly, you will find something fab. If you rush in, randomly grab stuff from the rails and get frustrated, you will find nothing. That's just how it works.

- When you do find something you like, DO NOT TRUST THE SIZE ON THE HANGER! Always check the label, because quite often, things are put onto the wrong hangers. There is nothing more irritating than getting into the changing rooms, or even worse, getting home, and finding that the lovely size 12 skinnies you found, are actually a size 6. (This is even worse when you don't realise that they're the wrong size until you've actually tried to put them on - "Oh God, how do they not fit? They're a 12! I can't get them past my thighs! Oh this is terrible, how can I be this fat? No... wait they're a size 6. For f*** sake..." and by that point you're so traumatised, you just want to go home and cry)

- Try stuff on. I know some people prefer to just buy things, try them on at home and then take them back if they don't fit, but that to me is more of a hassle than spending a bit of time in the changing room queue. Plus, it's easy to forget to return something and then you end up with a load of stuff you never wear, which is a waste of money. So try before you buy!

- If the shop sells everything, ie clothes, shoes and jewellery, go through the clothes first, try on what you like, then go back and look at the shoes and jewellery. You're not usually allowed to take accessories into the changing rooms because apparently, if alone in a cubicle with a pair of earrings, we all feel the urge to get a bit stealy. You may as well whittle down which clothes you want to buy from the massive pile you've probably accumulated, free up some arm space, then go and decide on accessories.

- Check the things you're going to buy for rips/stains etc. With so much stuff ending up on the floor during a sale, things can get damaged, so save yourself from the disappointment of getting home and finding that the white blazer you just bought has a footprint on the back. Also, if something does have a bit of damage, but it's not very noticeable or easily fixed, you can always ask if the manager will give you some more money off; I know someone who bought an H&M denim jacket for 50p once because it was covered in biro, she washed it and it was as good as new!

Behavioural check.

- Having worked in the Next sale several times when I was younger, experiencing first-hand the trauma of rabid, bargain-hungry women, I know just how soul-destroying it is to spend ages tidying a rail only to turn around and find someone carelessly dragging all the clothes out of it and chucking them about. Yes the sales are always untidy, but you don't have to contribute to the mess! If you drop something on the floor, pick it up! And if you see a sales assistant tidying a rail, don't stand next to her messing up all her tidying! Obviously you can look through the rails, that's what they're there for, you just don't have to act completely mental while you do so.

- Sale rails are quite narrowly packed together, so it can be easy to bump into people while you're trying to manoeuvre amongst them, but if you do, say sorry! And if someone bumps into you, don't get all irrationally angry, it was probably just an accident. Sales can be stressful, but honey, if you can't handle the heat, get out of Topshop - you're ruining it for the rest of us.

- If someone picks something up that you saw first, no matter how lovely it is, you can't fight with them. You just can't. Have a look around for the same garment and if you can't see it, keep an eye on the person - they may put it down again. Ultimately though, it's just a piece of clothing, don't act as though you're life depended on you owning a sequined playsuit because that's just tragic, isn't it?

Mr Bojangles

Just a quick post, following on from yesterday's.

Despite Sheniqua's claims that the fashion show would be a formal affair, I decided to wear my new black dress from the Topshop sale, the leather jacket of dreams and these crazy pompom shoes (again from Topshop);

I love these shoes - I very rarely wear them because they're so bloomin' special - look at the pompoms! Look at the heel! They even came with a little silky shoebag to keep them all protected and clean!

I also wore my new massive earrings (again from the Topshop sale - what's wrong with me?!), which are jangly to the max, but also exceptionally heavy. I did fear that my earlobes would become elongated during the course of the night, due to the sheer weight of the things. I suppose it all comes down to the question of would you be willing to risk developing freakishly long earlobes for the sake of some fabulous earrings? The answer is clearly yes, yes I would.

Pat Butcher eat your heart out

Seriously - SO heavy!

Anyway, the moral of this story is that when you go out wearing an outfit which consists of fabulous yet somewhat painful shoes and super jingly jangly earrings - manage your time carefully. Otherwise you end up having to leg it for the bus which results in majorly sore feet AND sore ears!

Let this be a lesson, kids - jangly earrings and running do not mix...

Why's she dressed like a mint imperial?

Zut alors! I didn't realise how long it'd been since my last post - bad Little Curly Girl, this really will not do.

I don't have much of an excuse except that I went to London last week, came back and then was back down there again before I had time to really think about it.

It's now 1.20am and I need to rest my head, so I'm going to try and keep this short, but I've got much to speak of so let's just see how it goes, shall we?

First off, the Topshop sale started last week, and while I didn't manage to get hold of a cheap blazer (they had a few but sadly not in my size), I did buy a new dress and some jingly jangly earrings;

Not sure if you can really see from the photos (courtesy of topshop.com), but the bottom is all hitched up, kind of like a saloon girl or a lady pirate. You can never have too many black dresses, especially not ones that are as versatile as this and at £15 it pretty much would have been a criminal offence not to buy it. The earrings I bought aren't on the website, so I'll show them in another post - can't be bothered getting all snap-happy now. But rest assured they are jangly and brilliant.

All in all, I was impressed with the sale; if I'd had more money and the shop hadn't been so goddamn hot and hectic, I'd have probably tried on and spent more.

Now that was the Liverpool store. While killing some time on Monday afternoon in London, I took an eye-opening trip to the Oxford Street store.

Oh. Sweet. Kittens. I can't believe I've never been there before. It's just...so...BIG! They have two basements - you go down once, then you go down again! There was so much to look at! So many brands and concessions and vintage things and shoes and they have a Nails INC and an eyebrow threading studio and a place where you can get your hair blow dried! And they have toilets! AND a cafe! A cafe INSIDE Topshop! You could basically live there and maintain a perfectly groomed, stylish life. That is, until the security guards realised that the "Topshop hermit", which they had previously thought was just a myth conjured up by busy mothers trying to frighten their children into not wandering away from the changing rooms, was actually a real thing, living on bagels and dancing around the store at night wearing Sass & Bide jeans and Johnny Loves Rosie hair accessories.

But I digress. I didn't actually buy anything in the London Topshop, even though the sale was massive and I'm sure I could have found many wonderful things had I stayed longer, but I didn't really have time as I had to get across London to meet a certain Ealing-residing lady to go to a concert. Or 'gig' as the young folks say.

After a brief mishap which involved me firstly getting lost on Oxford Street trying to find the entrance to the tube and then getting trapped in rush hour traffic while underground, I finally met up with my lady friend and we made our way to the Soho Theatre to see the lovely Camille O'Sullivan.

Camille O'Sullivan is the sort of person who, if she was living in a 1940s cheesy American film, she would walk past a group of men and they'd stop and stare and then say "What a woman!" just like that.

Basically I'd like to be her. She's fabulous. I could go into great detail about how amazing the show was, but I was meant to be keeping this short and there's already quite a lot of stuff about her on the Internet, written by people who probably know much more about music than I do. But I do urge you to check her out if you haven't already because she is something special. Beautiful voice, beautiful character.

What I am going to talk about though, is her style. You can probably tell from the pictures above, that there's definitely an element of burlesque and old-style glamour there. But she wasn't quite as polished as some of those other ladies (Dita Von Teese et al), there was something a bit more shabby chic about her; pretty much everything she wore was a bit old or vintage, her shoes were worn down, her dress looked damaged and at one point she wore a kimono that had makeup stains on the back. Yet she looked stunning and I found that whole 'give a damn, I'm going to wear this coz I love it, not coz it's fashionable/new/clean' attitude so intriguing.

I very rarely shop for vintage clothing, partly because I never find anything that fits me and partly because I think it's difficult to find really good quality vintage; some of it just looks old and faded and scruffy and that's never really been my thing. But seeing how Camille could take all that worn out stuff and still look glamourous and sexy was just so interesting and it made me think of that kind of bohemian/gypsy/Moulin Rouge type thing, where it's more of a case of wearing whatever you could get your hands on and still looking damn cool. I searched for some photos of this sort of ragamuffin, gypsy, scavenger style, hoping that maybe I'd come across some fashion editorials that played with these ideas, but I couldn't find anything that went along with what I had in mind. This image from The Terrible Infants, a show I saw last summer in Edinburgh, is probably the closest thing to ragamuffin chic I could find;

Anyway, as I didn't manage to find any photo shoots which featured this kind of style, I'm thinking I might rope my sisters into doing one with me; my wardrobe is full of things that I think would work in this context, and I'll use this old nursery rhyme as inspiration;

Hark, hark, the dogs do bark

The beggars are coming to town.

Some in rags and some in jags

And one in a velvet gown

I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Hurting

I went for a little look around the shops today and felt so completely uninspired, it was just depressing. Here's the issue - everywhere is currently stocking spring/summer collections - you know; linen, pastels, flouncy skirts, strappy tops etc etc et bloody cetera. Zara was the worst culprit for it - clearly their buyers are extremely optimistic for a hot summer...maybe they know something we don't...

But at the moment it's so dismally cold and wet that I literally can't imagine buying anything except tights, cardigans, scarves (my friend dragged me away from a massive black one because she didn't understand my yearning for it...I may go back and buy it tomorrow) and possibly some kind of raincoat (ok, I'm joking). I hate the cold. Hate it. I completely understand the appeal of hibernating like woodland creatures do, in fact, I'm currently on the look out for a suitable cave, stocking up on acorns and advertising for a squirrel room-mate to keep me company.

So yeah, not feeling the summery clothes just yet.

Also, is it just me or is anybody else offended by how stupidly expensive Urban Outfitters and American Apparel are? I constantly find myself vaguely picking up some simple, basic piece, like a t-shirt or jersey knit skirt, looking at the price tag and then going "HOW MUCH?!" before hurriedly slamming it back on the rail and storming off in a huff. £52 for a fine knit jumper! I just think it's silly, I do, I really, really do. Maybe I'm getting old and cynical...

Even so, I did find one moment of sheer joy when in the shoe section of Topshop today. My goodness, their shoe designers are on form this season! Actually the whole of Topshop is very, very good at the moment - the current jewellery collection is incredible (I know I praised it a bit in my last post, but it really is beautious).

I talked myself out of buying the ruffled ones and then sat down to read Style magazine and was faced with a massive picture of them - it's clearly a sign that I should buy and love them forever...

from left to right - PASSION £95, SHE-RA £70, LULU £60

(photos from topshop.com)

Big is beautiful

Won't you take a look at my new earrings? Just a little look?

Yes they're dangerously big (and heavy) and I do fear that a crazed gypsy woman may try to rip them out of my ears because they're actually the wheels from her (somewhat elaborately decorated, let's be honest) gypsy caravan, but even so, I'm just going to come right out and say it, Freedom at Topshop, you're a bit good aren't you?

You can't really see in the picture but I'm also wearing the pinkest lipgloss known to man. I mean, it actually is pinker than anything I've ever seen before. This is the kind of pink that means business. My lips look like someone melted down a pair of Barbie's shoes and made me eat them without using cutlery. It's by GloMinerals and is called Bougainvillea.

See? PINK!

Blazin' Saddles...

I am officially OBSESSED with the Topshop Boyfriend Blazer. I first wrote about it in October and it's still in stock, taunting me in it's preppy-ness. They've now added several other variations to the current collection and this grey, double breasted number is just divine.
Made a little set on Polyvore - I'm really enjoying riding boots at the moment too, so this is a kind of gentlemanly, equestrian type look;

Just...lovely...

A familiar face...

I know, I've not posted for AGES. It's a mixture of getting sucked up by Christmas, having lots of weekends away, working and generally just being a bit crap.

Anyway, my own rubbishness aside, I was in Topshop recently and noticed something...

THIS!!!

"Nice top", you say, "unusual, cute, simple, I like!" Yes, it's lovely, so lovely in fact that I already have something VERY similar that I made myself having been inspired by THIS;

Lanvin have been doing these doodly cartoon face t-shirts for a while now. I first saw this particular style last February and made one myself out of a Primark man's t-shirt I had lying around (surplus item from a show I'd costume designed for, not because I have some kind of weird men's t-shirt collection).

I've just Googled this item and found that myself and Topshop are not the only ones who saw its copying potential - you could buy THIS 'Lanvin Style' tee-shirt from instarshop.com which looks like a dodgy version of ASOS and appears to no longer exist anyway;

Aside from the ribbon being in a different position and there being frills around the neckline, surely this is exactly the same design! Now I know High Street and online stores take inspiration from designer but THAT is ridiculous!

I want I want I want

Walking into Topshop yesterday I was faced with an item which has been haunting me ever since I first spotted it two weeks ago; the boyfriend blazer. I love it with all my heart and soul. I know it's fairly simple and basic but a good blazer is something that everyone should have in their wardrobe as it's so versatile. I'm really liking the current trend for big, slouchy, men's style blazers (especially with rolled up sleeves...I don't know why, I just do) and as you can see from the photos above, everyone is rocking them, from my favourite little fashion pixie Alexa Chung, to Anne Hathaway and Keira Knightly.


(photo from topshop.com)

This one from Topshop I've just realised is a slightly less fancy version of the Kate Moss for Topshop blazer they had in stock a while ago (that one had a school badge on the front and silkier lining), it must have sold so well that they decided to do their own version. It's £55 which is fairly reasonable for something that you can wear again and again, but alas, I just can't justify spending that much (or any) money at the moment and so it will continue to haunt me in its oversized, cool-turned-up-cuffed beauty forevermore.

Lovely thing of the week...

So, kicking off this new promise to post more exciting stuff on here, I thought I'd start with something I'm going to do as a feature every week, entitled simply, 'lovely thing of the week'.
Does what it says on the tin really - every week there'll be something lovely!

This week's lovely thing is this pair of gorgeous Mary Janes from Topshop. They're £65 and 100% leather, I know they're not HUGELY exciting, but there's something about Mary Janes that I just love (hence the title of the blog), they're just so simple and chic. The three little straps make these a bit different and I'm a sucker for a platform (no really; show me a platform and I'll do pretty much whatever you want) so they're just an all-round winner for me!