Wearing lately...

left: shirt-Asos, shorts-Whistles, shoes- Park Lane via Asos; right: shirt- Zara, shorts- Topshop Boutique, shoes- River Island

left: top- Pull & Bear, skirt- vintage, shoes as before; right: top- Zara, dungarees- Primark, shoes as before

 I'm not entirely sure how it's possible that we're halfway through July, but the calendar doesn't lie, and despite a late start, it's now very much summer outside.  Which obviously means I'm stuck in the same sartorial rut as I am every year.  I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I just don't actually like very many summer clothes, though I don't know what I can do about that.  This year, I had sworn to avoid the problem of finding two separate items of clothing that I actually like and which match each other, by just buying a selection of floaty summer dresses, rather than trying to match tops and skirts/shorts.  I've yet to buy one.  The problem with summer dresses is that they mostly tend to be shapeless sacks in an array of colours I'd normally never look twice at.  So I've once more resorted to my tried and trusted denim shorts, and I'm building up a small collection of non-t-shirt tops to pair them with.  The photo with the leather shorts was taken a few weeks ago- it's definitely too hot and sticky to attempt wearing them now.  Footwear is proving to be another problem- as much as I like the silver sandals and black and white espadrilles I'm wearing in every single photo, I'm very much sick of wearing them every day, but I'm finding it hard to find anything else I particularly like (well, anything that isn't Balenciaga and therefore completely unaffordable)  To be honest, I'm getting really frustrated with having to go through a big chunk of the year hating almost everything I wear.  Surely there must be a way to dress nicely when it's over 30 degrees out?  Answers on a postcard please...

Nothing to Wear?

This post by Garance Dore sums up how I've been feeling about my wardrobe at the moment.  All of the things I've been excited about this season (chunky knits, angora jumpers, oversized coats, pvc midi-skirts) look absolutely awful on me.  Case in point the H&M coat of my dreams, a love affair which is very much one-sided:

This is me trying to make the coat look as flattering as possible

This is what it actually looked like.  In the perfect candy-floss pink to boot. *sob*

Now I love this coat.  I nearly hyperventilated when I first saw it, as it was exactly what I had wanted, but didn't think I'd find, and certainly not for under £100.  I first tried it on a few weeks back, after I had grabbed my size and raced to the nearest mirror, certain I'd be taking it home.  I was quickly disabused of that idea when I saw my reflection, wearing what appeared to be a giant's dressing gown, and I slunk home, coatless.  Since then, I've tried on every single coat I've even remotely liked in every shop possible, and not had any luck.  I then went and tried on the H&M coat, in both colours, three(!) more times.  You know, in case it miraculously decided to look good on me (third time was definitely not the charm).  I'll spare you the nearly identical stories involving angora and oversized jumpers, but suffice it to say, this is not my season, fashion-wise.  I'm not especially tall, a size 6-8, and I've got broad shoulders, upon which anything bulky hangs and creates the illusion of squat square-ness.  Oversized anything is not a look I should ever attempt.  So I've reverted to wearing the same things I always wear, and looking like I always look, despite actually being thoroughly sick of navy jumpers and black skirts.  So I'm left feeling as if I've got nothing to wear, simply because everything I wear is essentially a variation of the same thing, and it all blends into one after a while.  So my (admittedly quite shallow, but hey, this is a fashion blog, so whatevs) dilemma is do I stick to what suits me, and dress in a way that accents the positive, glosses over the negative, and would generally be approved by French fashion editors, or give in to my fashion victim cravings, buy lots of pink fluffy things and give up on anyone ever approving of what I wear?  Answers on a postcard please...

Splurge vs Steal?

Magazines have long sold us the idea of having the high street version of a designer look, for a fraction of the cost.  And I used to go along with it, always waiting for the low-end version of the high-end look I was coveting.  When I was about 18, one of my first purchases from Topshop was a faux-leather version of the Ostrich skin Prada bags that were everywhere that season (I'm massively dating myself here, it was somewhere round the turn of the millenium).  I couldn't get over the fact that you could have something that looked reasonably like the designer item it was inspired by, in the same season, for the princely sum of £18.  I was hugely proud of that bag, and it's probably still knocking around somewhere in my old bedroom in my parents' house.  As time passed though, and my obsession with fashion grew deeper, I realised that there was no real point to designer copies.  Anyone with any idea about fashion will soon clock that your high street bag is just that, and not actually designed by Miuccia herself.  So I've slowly lost interest in designer look-alikes.  I don't mind "inspired by" or in the general style of, but I don't think anything currently in my wardrobe could be considered a designer copy in any way.  The floods of designer fakes that have overrun ebay leave me cold (when you see copies of Topshop or Zara styles, it's clearly gone too far).  So I was as surprised as anyone by the item that made me re-think my stance on the issue.  

It's a bloody Bambi jumper.  From Primark.  It cost £10 and I absolutely love it.  In fact when I saw it, I ran over to it and had to stop myself squealing ohmygodgivenchybambiImusthaveit!  Because this look, from Givenchy's A/W 13 collection was possibly my favourite look of the season:

Now, I realise 99% of people who see me wearing my Primark almost-copy will just think I'm a grown woman in a Disney jumper and possibly just assume I'm a bit odd.  The other 1% though will know I'm wearing what I wish were a Givenchy jumper, but is actually just a cheap wannabe.  And I don't know if I'm ok with that.  If I were wearing the real deal, I would still be a grown woman in a Disney jumper, but I'd be smugly secure in the knowledge that it was approved by Riccardo Tisci, and every fashion editor and starlet in existence:

  

 So basically, I'd still be a fashion victim, but at least one who was wearing something by a hugely covetable designer.  Now I'm just a 30-something in a jumper with a cartoon deer on it.  To be honest, even if I had no idea of the inspiration behind the top, I'd probably still have worn it at home where no one but my boyfriend (who once owned slippers in the shape of big, fluffy dogs and therefore cannot judge) would see me.  But now, the fashion world has deemed it acceptable, so I've worn it in public.  And it's the first thing I've liked that I've really questioned- normally copies of the must-have of any season just bore me because they're overexposed before they even properly land in shops, but Bambi seems to be one look the high street has, for the most part, left alone.  I just don't know if I ought to have done the same...