Saint Laurent A/W 2014

In light of the fact that we're apparently expecting a heatwave next week (the thought of trudging to work in 36 degree heat makes me want to weep), of course my thoughts are turning to my autumn/winter wardrobe.  Lately, I've been trying to avoid looking too far ahead, and just live in the current fashion season, but that's proving quite tricky when the sales are slowly reaching their end and the shops are filling with jumpers, coats and ankle boots, which are far more appealing than, well, pretty much anything summer's had to offer (does anyone else find the idea of spring/summer clothes much more attractive in the depths of winter than when it's actually warm enough to wear them?)    Spotting a pair of glittery knee-high boots by Saint Laurent in the latest Elle (Greece) compelled me to have a proper look at the whole collection, and it quite nicely sums up my perennial autumnal obsessions, which mainly involve looking like a 1960s schoolgirl.  Ahem.  It also further encourages me in my desire to own a tartan kilt, to be worn with my newest pair of ankle boots, an oversized jumper, and my navy peacoat.  I'd also love a velvet dress with a huge white collar.  And possibly even some knee-high boots, sparkly or otherwise....

photos from here

Furry Love

I'm on holiday at the moment, mainly floating round in bikinis and denim shorts, so of course this is when I decide to be obsessed with all things autumn/winter.  Top of my wishlist at the moment is this Whistles coat.  It's lilac, fluffy, and big enough to completely cover me from head to toe should I wish to curl up in a ball and hide away from the cold.  I'm not sure I could ask for anything more from my outerwear...

New Obsession...

Ok, this isn't strictly fashion, but it's vaguely related (interiors are a great love of mine which is, sadly, rarely indulged).  Lately I keep coming across photos of amazing woven wall hangings, so I decided to seek them out, and came across quite a lovely selection on etsy.  I'm actually tempted to try making my own, as this would be the perfect way to use up the yarn I've bought for previous daliances with knitting...  

Buy here

Buy here

Buy here

Buy here

Buy here

Away from etsy, I also came across the work Maryanne Moodie, who does amazing things with yarn.   She also sells beginners' weaving kits via her etsy shop, though they're sold out at the moment.

Miu Miu S/S '14

Whilst the rest of the world is in meltdown over fashion month (oh yeah, and the potential outbreak of another Crimean war, to keep this in perspective), I've been losing interest in the whole circus.  Nothing I've seen on the catwalk for the upcoming autumn/winter season has really caught my eye, and even the street style I've seen has been fairly "meh".  I've liked a few looks from the usual suspects- Simone Rocha, Chloe, Dries Van Noten- but nothing wowed me, so instead, I've turned my attention to the current collections (to be fair, spring is always about a million times more exciting than the promise of cold, dark, rainy nights that come part and parcel with autumn).  I'm particularly enamoured of the S/S Miu Miu campaign, and the colourful crochet tights and lace-up knee high boots featured with every look.  They're the perfect solution to my end of winter wardrobe fatigue. 

I must admit, I haven't been paying all that much attention to Miu Miu the past couple of years, and I can't even remember if I bothered looking at this last fashion week.  Seeing the Elle Fanning ad in this month's Vogue awakened my curiosity though, and I'm thoroughly smitten.  I think generally, it's difficult to get a proper feel for a collection just by seeing it on the catwalk, and there have been a lot of times I've failed to notice something until I see it in print, both in ad campaigns and in editorials.  I'm all for the democratisation of fashion, and whilst things like live streaming/instragramming/tweeting have brought the once rarified experience of seeing a fashion show to the masses, I think it's also taken away our ability to properly digest what we see.  Everyone is so hungry for the newest (and therefore best) designer offering, that we forget what's in front of us.  At the moment all I want is to focus on the upcoming season, not to wish it away thinking about what I may or may not like in six months' time.  So I'm all about slow fashion- taking the time to flip through a physical magazine, and noting what makes me stop and stare, wanting to absorb a certain image, or piece of writing.  Somehow this all gets lost whilst scrolling through endless photos on a screen.  So this spring, I'm mainly planning to revive my old habit of scrapbooking, cutting and pasting my favourite magazine photos, saving them for a rainy, inspiration-less day.  Meanwhile,  I'll spending every free moment scouring ebay for vintage lace-up boots...

Givenchy Dreaming

During a perfectly innocent wander round the Selfridges shoe hall earlier today to check out the sale (nice things in every size but mine was the final verdict), I stumbled upon the most perfect pair of Givenchy shoes, times two.  Slip on trainers for everything but the hottest of summer days, floral printed black leather Birk-alikes for lazy days in the sun.  Now that I know that they exist, I'm not sure my life can be complete without them.  I will almost certainly be buying some clumpy-verging-on-orthopaedic sandals this summer though, and possibly attempting to paint flowers all over them... 

Buy here

Buy here

(As a side note, it's funny how the shoes I lust over have gone from being high and impractical to flat and sensible over the past few seasons.  I prefer to think it's due to changing fashions rather than my slow and inevitable transformation into my mother.  I am massively excited about the sheer variety available in flat shoes lately though- where once there were only ballet pumps and the odd brogue, there is now every variety of loafer, trainer, slipper, pool slide, creeper, etc, imagineable.  I feel spoilt for choice without ever having to contemplate being more than an inch off the ground.)

Accessorize All Areas

Anyone who's been following my ramblings for a while will know I've got a mild obsession with & Other Stories- along with sister store Cos, it makes up my the exception to my general disillusionment with the high street, and I've made a fair few pilgrimages to Regent Street solely to paw at their handbags and contemplate their (just over my budget) outerwear.  So when I happened upon a feature on their website featuring Giulia and Giorgia Tordini , the Italian sisters on whom I've got a massive style crush,  in the winter collection, I went into fangirl overdrive and suddenly found myself wanting to subsist on a steady diet of red lipstick, elegantly spindly heels and piles of gold jewellery paired with simple black dresses.  It's the ultimate Scandi-meets-Mediterranean combination and I think it's the perfect antidote to my recent overdose on knitwear and ankle boots...

Pink Wonderland

This photo from Pink Sweater shoot which I stumbled upon on the Wonderland site made me realise that my wardrobe is still entirely lacking in pink and that I clearly need to do something to rectify this.  I'm thinking the perfectly fluffy mohair jumper I've been lusting after from Cos might just do the trick...  

Portamento

One thing I find sorely lacking in UK/European fashion is mid-range independent designers.  Even fledgling designers just starting out seem to be completely out of my budget, and the gap between the high street and proper designer is increasingly being filled by brands like Whistles and Cos, which isn't terribly inspiring if you want something that can't be found on every single high street. I'm a bit rubbish about actually visiting many of the independent boutiques I admire, especially the ones based in deepest East London, which would appear to be most of them.  So I'm always happy to stumble upon websites that introduce me to brands and designers I wouldn't have otherwise known about.  A while back, I posted a pair of Chelsea boots by Portamento, available at Swanfield Boutique, which in itself is probably worthy of a separate post.  My hunt for the perfect Chelsea boots is still very much on, after an ebay disappointment, so I was contemplating whether I shouldn't give that particular pair a try after all and I ended up searching out the brand's website.  And I fell a tiny bit in love.  

Prices range from £29, for the espadrilles I wish I had been aware of this past summer, to £189 for the black Chelsea boots.  They do a wide range of styles, including a lot that are far more girly than any of the ones I've posted, but at the moment all I want is classic, men's styles.  According to their website, Portamento is run by a couple based in Hackney, and is "a gallery of art, contemporary fashion and unusual objects in an eclectic mix resembling the world of the owners."  They don't seem to have a physical shop, which is a shame, but I'm incredibly tempted to order at least one pair...

& Other Stories (again)

I blogged about the latest addition to the H&M family before they opened at the beginning of the year, but like their sister chains Monki and Cos, I've tried to avoid looking at their collections too much as I didn't actually have access to a branch in person and they limit online shopping to a handful of countries.  Now that I'll actually be able to potentially shop there though, I had a quick browse and compiled a mini-wishlist.  

Leather Shoulder Bag

Claire Judge silk playsuit

Leather brogue boots

The bag is potentially the perfect black everyday bag to replace my knackered Zara one, the playsuit is the sort of silky, indulgent loungewear I always aspire to but never manage to actually own, and the boots could be a good compromise between clompy army boots and mannish brogues.  I'm also completely obsessed with their collection of nail varnish, which has names like Moire Green and Shoddy Pink.

Chelsea Boots

As I get older, I've realised that my seasonal searches tend to be less for something new and exciting and more for the perfect version of a long-standing obsession.  I mentioned in my previous post how I had let the perfect pair of Chelsea boots slip through my fingers a few years back.  Obviously, I've been searching for a similar pair ever since, to no avail.  Every autumn, the high street is awash with every possible variety of Chelsea boot, but none have been quite right.  I did find the perfect pair in Massimo Dutti, of all places, last summer, but resisted buying something so wintry in the midst of a heatwave and, of course, by the time I was ready to buy them they had long since sold out.  I ended up buying an oxblood pair, also from Massimo Dutti, and whilst I love them, I'm still hunting for the holy grail pair I want to believe is out there.  This year I'm starting early(ish) and compiling a list of possible contenders.

I instantly fell in love with this pair when I stumbled upon them in my search for something entirely unrelated.  But they're white, which I suspect would leave me still craving the perfect black pair.

Portamento boots

These are, without a doubt, pretty near perfect.  They also cost £500 and are sold out in my size.  *sniff*  I'll just gaze on this photograph adoringly and try not to imagine how I would happily wear them every. single. day.  and how much better they'd get the more battered they became.

Balenciaga boots

I'm intrigued by these Dr. Martens ones, but, pleasingly stompy though they are, I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer lace-up boots in this cut.

Flora boots

These Acne boots are probably my dream boots- they've got the perfect heel height, and look like they would fall at the perfect just-above-the-ankle spot.  If I had had £500 going spare last autumn, I would have bought them the second I laid eyes on them.  As I didn't, I've now resigned myself to searching for them on ebay for all eternity.  There's currently a pair in a size 3 starting at 99p here. 

Zara A/W '13

I know I'm not the first to discover the amazing-ness of Zara's A/W campaign images, but I couldn't resist posting a few of them.  I've rather gone off Zara in recent seasons, mainly because my local branch is becoming increasingly crap and they don't offer online shopping to Greece, but also because the quality seems to be decreasing whilst their prices are increasing.  With my return to London hopefully imminent though, I look forward to being able to see this collection in the flesh and see if it's worth the hype.  In the meantime, I've decided I absolutely need to own a pair of pointed chelsea boots (still mourning the Repetto version I passed up a full FOUR years ago) and lots of lacy slip dresses.

Topshop A/W '13

Recently, during one of my daily trawls of Topshop's new-in section, I wondered if I hadn't maybe outgrown the brand, as none of their offerings tend to particularly catch my eye anymore.  For most of my post-teenage life, an embarassing percentage of my wardrobe came from the the high street stalwart, but in the past year or so, most of what I've bought has ended up being either sent back, or worn a few times and sold on ebay.  So, following on from my coat lust, I've just spotted the newest Topshop lookbook on Caroline's Mode and they've manage to completely win me over again.  I particularly love the shearling (?) coat, which might have just pipped the navy peacoat to the top of my wishlist. 

Too Soon?

 

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So I seem to have found my winter coat.  It popped up on Topshop's new-in page, and suddenly I became convinced a peacoat is the answer to my cold-weather (sartorial) problems.  I had a similar one when I was about 13, which had originally been my father's and was therefore ridiculously oversized on me.  I loved it though, and it fitted in perfectly with my grunge-era wardrobe of lace-up bovver boots and loose smock dresses.  This time round though, I fancy wearing it with skater skirts, ankle boots and slouchy jumpers- an homage to the schoolgirl style I eschewed as an actual schoolgirl.  I'm not entirely convinced it's not much too soon to be looking at winter woollies, but last winter, I ended up selling my older coats and was left with only a navy oversized boyfriend style I randomly bought from Primark in the autumn.  This year, I thought it would be nice to actually put some thought into what I buy, so it surely can't hurt to start dreaming of coats and jumpers in July. Normally, I tend to avoid buying things this far in advance, and can't bring myself to go bikini shopping (for example) before it's actually beach weather.  This year though, summer came late, which means that by the time I actually wanted to buy warm weather clothes, they were all in the sale and looking decidedly less tempting.  Therefore, I've decided there is absolutely no point in summer fashion and am skipping straight to next season.  Especially as I've just come back from two weeks spent by the sea, where I wore an outfit that did not consist of a bikini and flip flops exactly once.  And it was lovely.  So I'll continue to muddle through with my collection of beach cover-ups and denim shorts (fine, and a few actual clothes and sandals) until the temperatures drop and I can revive my interest in fashion.  In the meantime, I'll be working on my autumn/winter wishlist.  Next up, the perfect block-heeled chelsea boots and a pair of monk-strap brogues...