Buttercup's Frocks

Another quick one I’m afraid, tumblr, on account of I have little to say other than I am so over this bleeding winter already! The above was taken in the World’s Most Delightful and Sweet Smelling Giftshop® just a couple of weeks ago, when I thought spring might actually be springing after quite the most relentless winter…but no.

My joy at being able to winterise a couple of summer skirts after an eternity of motheaten woollies, (for realz; the moths have been a scourge-and-a-half this past season), was short-lived and we had snow again this weekend. My heating bill promises to be stratospheric, and the low dose of amitriptylene I take for my fibro has failed for the first time ever to take the edge of my SAD. 

But, hey, five minutes of vaguely spring-like weather is better than nothing I suppose, and I really liked this combo. The moment I tried this sweater on I knew I’d be wearing it with this skirt as soon as the opportunity presented itself as the neck detail picks up all the shades of coral and pink in the print.

In case you’re wondering about the variations in colour, I mistakenly took a load of pics with completely the wrong setting on my camera – so half the shots came out looking rather cold and clinical while the others were inexplicably bathed in soft-focused golden light. I suspect hue-wise the truth is somewhere in between.

By the way, this is the only picture I’ve ever seen of myself from the side  that I genuinely like, though I couldn’t tell you why. Toodles, y’all. Back with knitwear again in due course.

I was introduced to Melanie Tomlinson’s exquisite hand-printed steel brooches by a mutual friend last week. She makes tropical fish brooches too. I’d like a whole school of them!

While I may, hands down, prefer a frock over a trouser there are times when only a trouser will cut it – like when I’m teaching in a chilly, paint-spattered studio, which is quite often at this time of year. So this is not so much a blog post as a Public Service Announcement for those with my type of bod. 

Back when bootcut jeans were all the go, I managed to buy myself a few pairs from Evans that fitted both my very round middle and my not-so-round thighs pretty well. Recently, however, I’ve lost a bit of weight due to a variety of health issues and related dietary tweaks and my trusty if knackered bootcuts were beginning to hang off me, so I thought I’d better regroup. Imagine then my horror when I discovered that Evans had radically changed the cut of my jeans to better serve my pear-shaped sisters. I suppose it was logical given that pears are always encouraged to favour the bootcut to “balance out their problem areas”, (like folk will be so busy sneering at the unfashionable cut of your jeans to notice the equally unfashionable size of your behind). But it left me with bugger all in the way of denim to cover mine or so I thought.

I’ve been very vocal, (okay, whiney; cue sad trombone), about my inability to find jeggings or skinny jeans to fit me for the entire time they’ve been hip. Although apples are frequently exhorted to wear them under bum-grazing tunics to make the most of our “shapely legs”, (aka legs that resemble the societal norm more than our middles do), I’ve been cruelly thwarted in every attempt. Evans’s jeggings are reasonably priced and come in a large range of mouthwatering colours but they’re a consistently weird and horrible fit on me – baggy in the leg, with a ton of surplus fabric around the crotch. Given that I sometimes feel slightly vulnerable in a legging-worn-as-a-pant this particularly saddens me as I would have welcomed the opportunity to embrace a more substantial alternative.

Well, this week, in a fit of desperation and with a couple of hours to spare in another city, I tried on and bought two pairs of Evans straight-legs, one of which I’m wearing above. I like the fact they’re patterned, comfy and fit more or less like they’re supposed to, (though, when these pics were taken, I had yet to discover they fit better with a belt). The second pair are a plain, darker denim and (WTF?!) fit me like a skinny jean. As in I-can-tuck-them-into-my-boots skinny; as in look-like- they’ve-been-sprayed-onto-my-legs skinny. But the weirdest thing of all is that they’re both a size 16 which I am decidedly not. I’m just a slightly svelter 22 than I was this time last year. Alas, sizing down dramatically didn’t work with the coloured jeggings; they still didn’t fit – plus they gave me camel toe. But, hey, you can’t have everything. I’m just glad I finally got some damned jeans after all this time.

And yes, you’re quite right, that jacket totally swamps me and I really should chuck it out. I think the only reason I haven’t is because it looks like something my late father would have worn and my dad never had a denim jacket I didn’t end up appropriating. Not every day’s a glam day, tumblr.

Since I’m going out of town shortly, I’ll be quick like the proverbial bunny. Here’s a little serendipitous pattern-mixing fun from last weekend. Before the effing snow and Siberian winds came back. Again. (Spoke to my friend Jude in California yesterday; apparently their spring is actually springing. Ours is being a tease).

I’m not normally big on tucking stuff in but, like every other Liz Claiborne top I own, this cotton knit sweater keeps getting bigger and bigger so it was a case of having to. I was actually looking for a plain brown tee to wear with this skirt, when I suddenly realised they matched in my favourite kind of way. Plus horizontal stripes on my boobies. Win!

Plus it provided me with a good excuse to wear All The Amber and amber-coloured things. The little thumb ring, which is plastic, was 1970s  Italian dead stock I found in Greenwich Market last year. I wanted one in every colour the dealer had but stopped at this and a green one.

It was such a lovely respite being able to winterize some summer clothes instead of wearing eleventy layers of schlumpy knitwear.

Um - that’s…pretty much it. 

Ciao, bellas! 

When I found this trendtastic mirror-print shift dress in the post Christmas sales, I initially had misgivings because it’s a little loose on me, but the fact is sometimes I like things that way. As I said to a fellow fatshionista only recently, I live in armed neutrality with my mid-section. Sometimes my shape really bothers me and other times I think sod it. On the days it bothers me, I wear something “flattering” (like this frock). On the days I think sod it, I wear whatever and devil take the hindmost. That’s the best I can do and I’ve been at this self acceptance lark since God was in nappies.

Back in my mid-twenties I threw away the only bathroom scale I’ve ever owned, renounced dieting forever, and resolved to channel the energy I’d previously spent deriding and trying to change my body into learning to live with it, warts and all, instead. While loving it seemed a bit ambitious, (at least until I revised my definition of love in that particular context), acceptance seemed both possible and infinitely preferable to self-loathing, which was all I’d ever gotten out of weighing and starving myself – well, that and more fat than I started with before embarking on my dieting career. My face, I reasoned, was a veritable pageant of imperfection and I’d learned to live amicably enough with that. Ergo the same must be possible where the rest of me was concerned.

Somehow I arrived at this radical departure point in my life oblivious to the fact there was any kind of political movement to that end. It was the mid-1980s; the web as we know it was barely a twinkle in Bill Gates’s eye, I was based in the UK, and there was little in the way of fat-positive imagery outside of the paintings of Botero or Beryl Cook. Even when I did finally stumble upon the writings of Judy Freespirit and the Fat Underground they didn’t really speak to me as I found all the old skool radfem separatist womon/wimmin/womyn malarkey wholly alienating. The sizeism at the heart of Fat Is A Feminist Issue left a deeply nasty taste in my mouth and, while it was nearer the mark, the mind numbing statistics quoted ad nauseam by Naomi Woolf in The Beauty Myth made me lose the will to live. (Thank heaven for the Noughties and the likes of Lesley Kinzel, Marianne Kirby, Kath Read, Kate Harding and Ragen Chastain). All the same I knew, deep in my much maligned gut, I was absolutely on the right path for me.

It wasn’t an easy road to hoe. I had no fat friends in the UK at that time in my life, and the majority of my slim-to-average ones routinely talked trash about their own bodies; most of them still do. And while the Internet would have helped me to reach my goal a lot sooner, I gradually got down with my fat and am appreciably happier, saner and more confident as a result. But it’s one thing to be fine with one’s size and another to be cool with one’s shape. That’s where the internet did come into its own for me. Bizarre as this may seem to the fatphobe, some fat bodies are more acceptable than others, (the hourglass for instance); some are even considered to be healthier than others, (the pear-shaped); whereas everybody knows that abdominal fat is baaaaad and frankly not that easy to cut clothes for either. Or why I have never found a pair of plus sized skinny jeans or jeggings to fit me. In fact, currently, I can’t find a pair of jeans of any description to fit me.

Visibility and positive representation are crucial to self confidence in a culture that’s unwilling to grant you either. Over the years I tracked down, bought, and squirreled away for posterity every plus-size fashion magazine I could lay my hands in the search for inspiring images of gorgeous fat women rocking fabulous clothes. Likewise I watched many a make-over show on the off chance it might include a fat lass. But the images I immersed myself in still never looked a damned thing like me and most of them, outside of blogs like this one, still don’t. And the fashion advice for the non-pear, non-hourglass types almost always amounts to “eeuw, nobody wants to see that”. Though you’d have a long way to go to beat Trinny and Susannah’s Body Shape Bible. While the Cello is advised, “Always wear your strongest, brightest colours up top” and the Cornet, “you’re one of the only shapes that can get away with styles like skinny jeans and cigarette pants”, I’m told, “To get to love the shape that you are, try lying in your bed naked for an hour. Once you’ve accepted that, go to bed and sleep naked all night long. Enhance the experience with a new set of Egyptian cotton sheets.” (I know; “bitch please” doesn’t begin to cover it).

Five years ago I met Lisa Dolan, the proprietress of Brooklyn’s fabulous LeeLee’s Valise while on holiday in New York. Lisa herself is an apple and maintains we’re the perennial Cinderellas of the plus-size manufacturing industry. In fact she’s on a mission to improve our lot by pressurizing her suppliers to produce more apple-friendly clothing. There’s been much discussion in the fat-o-sphere of late about fatshion blogging being exclusionary. While I understand that folks with little disposable income, those who are disinterested in clothes or sized out of conventional plus size ranges, may quite justifiably feel that way, there are other kinds of exclusion.

On my New York trip I also posed for Substantia Jones and subsequently became one of her first Adipositivity calendar girls. I won’t lie; I was terrified but I wanted to make a difference to some other woman like me, who rarely saw her likeness aside from in her own mirror, who sometimes felt excluded even in Fat Acceptance circles. And I did. A couple of weeks after the picture went up, someone commented, “I came here today out of curiosity, looked at the first few photos appreciatively but objectively. Then the one with the fan? Looked like me. My breasts. My hands. The hair on my arms. The curve of my belly. And then I couldn’t be objective about any of them. I had to love them and myself”.

Sometimes simply wearing your clothes is just as political as taking them off.

Once upon a time I saw these Matthew Williamson earrings, which had yet to be reduced in the Westfield Debenhams sale - and promptly fell in love with their Byzantine vibe. Since I rarely spend serious money on costume jewellery, not least since I am currently borasic, I watched them like a hawk for weeks. Gradually everything around them got reduced, first by 20%, then 50%, even the matching necklace, but these didn’t budge for an age. And then – wallop! I blinked and some other bugger snapped them up at 70% off! Since they weren’t on the website, I bit the bullet and dragged myself to Oxford Street after work, where I snagged the very last pair in the store. (I suspect they hadn’t sold as one of the wires was busted, which was easily dealt with by changing them for a rolled gold pair I scored cheaply off eBay).

Emerald, you notice, allegedly the colour everyone’s going to be wearing come spring. Whilst there I also came upon this statement-mongous bit o’ bling:-

Can you stand it? Believe it or not I very nearly left it behind. (It’s too fussy! It won’t be Easy To Wear! It’s neon; neon was so In it’s bound to be Out by now. No, no, it’s chartreuse, there’s a difference. What have I got to go with it? Nothing! Shut UP! It looks like vintage fucking Butler and Wilson, what is wrong with you, Buttercup?!) Ugh! Couldn’t you sometimes strangle your conscience? But, as you can see, good sense won out in the end. The two together came in at a fraction over £14. I don’t think I was done.

Quite often people who want to be bolder in their dress feel overwhelmed by the prospect and I don’t blame them. Radical reinvention is scary but Rome wasn’t built in a day. For those who fancy introducing more colour or print into their sartorial repertoire, it’s easier on the pocket and the nerves to bring in a bold accessory or two than it is to buy an entire outfit, and there’s infinitely more likelihood of you wearing them. Tights, scarves, gloves, bags, hats and jewellery – individually or collectively – have the power to change up the staidest of outfits and, if you keep your eyes open, they can all be had for peanuts. And frankly, who wants to spend a fortune when you’re not even sure where you’re going with all this sticking-your-toe-in-the-water malarky?

So, to prove a point, I present some (mostly) recent charity shop scores for your perusal. First up, I have wood. No, not that kind of wood.

I ask you, who could resist that totes adorbs little toucan? Actually, to be truthful, I’m not sure if the bangles are wood. They’re quite heavy, almost like clay or inlaid shell and they clank together as if they’re hollow. Whatever they are they’ll certainly be seeing some major action this summer. And talking of shell, here’s some Mother Of Pearl and some faux jade and turquoise.

I did a little research on eBay and found several variations on this brooch, all of which appeared to be made in Israel, which might account for why I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. The bangles are a lovely shape and I think will make good spacers for larger ones. The next two are from last year…

I’m hoping the beaded pair don’t push anyone’s cultural appropriation buttons as I know nothing whatsoever about their provenance. However I’m inclined to think they weren’t made in the UK as I’ve never seen anything quite like them either. At least I know the money I paid for them here went towards a good cause, (a small local housing charity). 

I’ve had the Ferragamo brooches for many years and love them worn with these badges. I was quite made up when I found an unopened  card of them celebrating Mulberry’s 40th anniversary. I imagine they were initially given away with Mulberry purchases as a promotional item. Since the only Mulberry bags I’ve ever owned also came from charity shops, I thought this was quite serendipitous. 

I’m pretty sure both of these pairs are Mexican; the shell ones, (again I wear a lot of shell jewellery during the summer months), were part of a set with a brooch I keep meaning to give one of my friends as it’s a bit small for my liking. Here’s the most blissfully lightweight, fibromyalgia friendly necklace in the world from East, which I also think has a bit of a Mexican vibe…

… and lastly what I’m sure you’ll agree is the best bargain ever.

I found these on a stall in Covent Garden’s Monday antique market. They were only charging two quid for them anyway. But, on realising one of them was damaged, (it’ll be an easy enough fix with some epoxy resin, a deep breath and a magnifying glass), he insisted on giving them to me. They’re plastic not glass so they’re quite lightweight but they’re also pretty huge. Since I have quite a few clear resin bangles, I wasn’t going to let him throw them in the trash. 

So fancy sharing your own thrifting scores with me?

Hard to believe this time last week, I was off to LPSFW in bright sunshine and I could almost but not quite smell spring. Now it’s snowing again. Well, not exactly snowing – more that half-arsed kind that melts immediately it hits you or the pavement that I’m reliably informed is called “snizzle”. Whatever it’s called it seems a fitting accompaniment to this two-for-one OOTD, which I shot last time it was sub-zero in the World’s Loveliest Giftshop®. I’ll be so glad when I can get back into my my no-brainer uniform of frock-and-contrasting-cardi instead of having to twat about with umpteen layers.

To add insult to injury I discovered upon getting home having reacquainted myself with just how warm this twenty-year-old skirt is, that the moths had had a pop at that too, thus rendering it unwearable anywhere else outside my home for the duration. Huuuge great rapidly disintegrating (and un-darnable) hole right in the front at knee level, cunningly edited out via the power of iPhoto. To quote Soft Cell, (yes, I am that old), say hello, wave goodbye. Which is a damned shame because it’s a great colour and a lovely shape as you can see.

Not to mention that I have a lot of accessories featuring that shade of lime.

I suppose I should thank myself lucky that the mirths have thus far eschewed this trusty wraparound, which I’ve had for about five years. The sweater beneath was from the most recent Monsoon sale and they also made it in blue. I love the feathery detailing around the neck, which gives the illusion of a necklace without my having to run the risk of bringing on screaming neuralgia. Which is always a plus.

I’ve mentioned Windsmoor before as they make up to a very generous UK 24, which depending on cut and fabric, (their stretchy jersey dresses for instance), could easily accomodate someone a couple of sizes larger. This lined tweed skirt is a 20, again about 4 years old, and a bit too loose on me. It’s not a youthful line but their use of unusual colours and bold prints definitely works in their favour, at least for the winter months.

After the excitement of last weekend I’m off to see Cloud Atlas tonight; It’s one of my favourite books so I’ll be interested to play compare and contrast. I hope the multiple directors make a better job of it than the folks who murdered The Time Traveller’s Wife, which the director didn’t even have the wit to give a punk soundtrack, even though the music played such an integral part in the story and it might have cut the saccharine factor considerably. (The two of course are not connected except that TTTW also happens to be one of my favourite novels; my absolute fave to be precise).

Have a good one, tumblr!

Well, this is more or less what I wore on Saturday; these were taken on a separate occasion as I had way too much to do on the day in question – not least making sure I wasn’t late meeting the awesomely talented Carol Ryder, my companion for the event. Carol is already involved with Caryn Franklin’s All Walks Beyond The Catwalk initiative – and now, thanks to her introducing me to Caryn on Saturday, it looks as though my previous rant will shortly be reaching a wider audience on the AllWalks blog.

I’ll be frank, (as if I’d be anything else); on my walk towards Hoxton Town Hall where the shindig was taking place, I did rather find myself wondering where all the other fat ladies were. The event had enjoyed a fair bit of press coverage and I was expecting to see them sashaying proudly forth from Old Street Station in their droves. Even when Carol and I arrived at the venue, they were few and far between. (Though I did get to chat to Velvet D’Amour about Volup2, which seriously rocked). In fact, when we first set foot inside the exhibitors’ area, my heart fairly plummeted into my Steve Maddens. I’m very well acquainted with the building, having worked around the corner in Curtain Road for some years and attended three East London Design Shows there. It’s not the most beautiful of venues but it has the kind of faded grandeur that can be made to work in its favour. Alas there’d been some massive oversights on behalf of the organisers.

Tumblr, there were no effing mirrors, save for the one in the Ladies, and the place was lit like a pick-up merchant’s bachelor pad. And many of the designers and manufacturers scheduled to appear on the catwalk that evening were attempting to sell clothes in this sepulchral gloom. Carol scored some funky and eminently affordable sample pieces from New Zealand outfit, Lucabella, but had to repair to the lav to try them on first. Needless to say the haute couture end of fat lady chic wasn’t quite so accomodating. The only way Carol could see herself in a to-die-for Carolyn de la Drapiere jacket was by my taking a picture of her in it on her iPhone. Unlike the East London Design Fair, no coat-check or café area had been provided and the only refreshments to hand were cupcakes with no tea to wash them down with. Plus the room was overheated so all in all it wasn’t  the most comfortable of shopping environments.

Also, can I just say something about the cupcakes ‘n’ clothes combo? I know cupcakes are all the crack these days. I know they’ve become synonymous with all things girly and shopping related. But, out of context, they also play right into the fat-women-stuff-their-kites-with-cake-all-day trope in a culture that never misses an opportunity to make us look ridiculous – particularly when we have something important to say. I know it isn’t fair. This year I saw cake on offer with my own two eyes at London Fashion Week too. The difference is that there was somewhere to sit down and eat it. When the media’s eyes are upon us, and the inevitable accusations of “encouraging obeeeesity!” are only a Daily Mail fuckwit’s opinion piece away, I can’t help feeling that a room full of fat women fondling dresses with one hand while clutching a cupcake in the other, is an image our detractors will go to town on. 

So, did the day improve? Hell, yes; eventually. Not feeling in desperate need of a style make-over or fired up by the prospect of a clothing swap, Carol and I had opted for just the afternoon keynote panel discussion and the fashion show due to kick off at 6.00 – and so, it appeared, had everybody else. They must have all been hiding in the pub because suddenly the place was heaving with fatshion bloggers and it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces – and fabulous examples of drop-dead plus size style – under one roof.

The acoustics were grim though. While the room made a great location for the fashion show later on, it was way too vast and echoey to host a discussion in. The people in the back couldn’t hear bugger all while those of us down the front didn’t fair much better. Unless the panelists spoke very slowly and clearly into the microphone from a distance of several inches, (which only Anna Scholz did), everything sounded garbled and distorted. Personally I found I was concentrating so hard on deciphering what folks were saying that I wasn’t able to formulate any coherent thoughts about any of it let alone wade in with an opinion. But I met a very nice buyer from M&Co who really seemed to want to make a difference and asked if I’d be interested in being a reviewer, so I made sure I gave her my two cents when I emailed her afterwards.

What struck me most after the discussion was that the reason so many mainstream manufacturers fail to get a grip on the plus size market is because they view us as a monolith rather than recognising that we’re a microcosm of the world at large. As a whole we span all age groups, social strata, body types and fashion identities – from the steampunk obsessed teen to the stay-at-home-mum to the corporate worker to the dreaded mother of the bride. As a result even the few dedicated plus size manufacturers doing their utmost to provide us with a decent choice either end up spreading themselves too thinly or copping out altogether in favour of one demographic. If mainstream manufacturers are serious about cashing in on our hard earned dosh they need to recognise our diversity and create multiple plus size lines instead of treating us like one entity. Or they need to create a plus size muse based on their slimmer customer ideal and offer her a comparable wardrobe instead of playing safe. Then there’s the matter of them only stocking the dullest things in-store, or in selected stores, (Hello Forever 21, who only stock their plus range in one store in the entire country), or else only stock it online. But, as usual, I digress.

The fashion show, despite a barrage of naff eating-related jokes from the compere and some technical glitches with the timing and sound system…absolutely blew my socks off. As in the atmosphere was absolutely electric. As in gave me chills and made me feel like anything might be possible after all. No, it didn’t have the gloss and slickness of what’s going on at Somerset House this week but it was incredible to witness actual plus size models of a wide variety of body types, including mine for once, strutting their stuff on the catwalk in outfits any and all of us could wear, wherewithal permitting. An hour and a half of non-stop fatshion to suit every purse, lifestyle and age group. What’s more people have even been nice about it. The Guardian for instance. 

Would I rather plus size fashion was integrated with the mainstream, (one of the questions that had been asked earlier on)? Yes, I think fashion should be all inclusive. I strongly believe those who intend to make their living as high street designers should be taught to design for the widest possible variety of female bodies rather than one which bears scant relation to what most adult women actually look like. I would advocate images of women with a wide variety of body types being used to promote the clothes in stores, online and in advertising campaigns, and that women’s magazines should follow suit instead of bellyaching that manufacturers’ tiny sample sizes make it impossible. (If they’re so damned influential surely they can demand bigger ones). And I believe society would be healthier and saner for it too.

Rather than talking about the designers I’m going to refer you to Marcy Guevara so you can see some of their fabulous creations for yourselves. 

Skinny people aren’t the enemy. Fat, skinny and in-between; it’s all normal. We are all normal. Those with a vested interest in creating and maintaining our insecurities are the enemy. The diet floggers, the cosmetic and bariatric surgeons, the pharmaceutical conglomerates, the food manufacturers, the fashion and beauty publications who shamelessly exclude anyone who doesn’t fit within their narrow parameters of beauty. Those who lionise, demonise and pathologise certain types of bodies at the expense of our physical and mental health; those who persist in conflating appearance with health and health with morality – they are the enemy.

Instead of recognising this and telling them where to stick their pernicious, divisive crap, we allow ourselves to be manipulated into buying it. We become the enemy; the vessel of our own destruction. Riven with self-loathing we expend what little remains of our emotional energy knocking down those we perceive to be nearer the mark than ourselves. We continue to buy the dumb magazine in the supermarket checkout so we can cackle over the infinitesimal speck of cellulite on some hapless celebrity’s backside to make up for the pain of fixating on our own “flaws”. Which is why the average-sized model who manages to make it onto the front of a magazine lashes out at the skinny models … and why the readers’ comments following the accompanying test will be dripping with vitriol about how morally bankrupt she is for daring to “glorify obesity”. Seriously haven’t we got better, more creative things to do?

Me? I’m off to London Plus-Size Fashion Weekend with my fashion illustrator friend, Carol. What are you doing to buck the system, playmates?

Greetings, tumblr playmates! Just a quickie post this week as I am snowed under with work and have another hideously early-morning start tomorrow. Please ignore the wrinkles in my tights by the way; they’re just a teensy bit too long. But they’re also mint frackin’ green, (thank you, H&M), so schlepping them up once in a while is a small price to pay.

I first saw this frock back in late summer and totally fell in love with the colours and print. Only one problem - the neck. It’s kind of like an extra wide halter with a sort of yolk detail at the back? It’s also designed for someone three inches longer in the neck/upper chest area than moi. Which means that when I sit down or, y’know, move, it’s a bit gapey around the bazoomas. Reluctantly I decided it Wasn’t For Me.

But then it resurfaced in my local branch of Monsoon during the dying gasp of the January sale. I recently discovered they do a roaring trade in larger sizes, which explains why I never have a problem finding them there. (Unlike the Westfield flagship store which you’d think, being the flagship store and all, would stock the widest possible range of sizes… but that would be logical).

Anyway, resurface it did…at 70% off, which made it £16.50, at which point I decided I’d Make It Work Tim Gunn stylee if it killed me. I decided that being capacious and having a tie-back meant I could wear a cami underneath and a shrug over the lot and it would probably look okay.

While I knew I had several shrugs in the right colours none of my camis were quite the ticket, but then I remembered I had this Primark long sleeved tee, which I’d bought the autumn before last to wear under a pinafore dress. (That’s a jumper to you folks across the pond. In the UK, a jumper is a sweater. Go figure). Turned out to be a perfect match for the orangey-red and also the perfect thickness, so I’m a very happy bunny. It even looks okay without the shrug, which was a surprise. And the two layers of fabric seems to stop the gapey thing happening, which is even better.

Sadly it was still too nippy to wear my yellow Hotter Shakes, (though it was sunny enough on the weekend to take some in-focus pictures for a change), so I compromised with these plum Clarks Mary-Janes. They’re a five-year-old old design from the Active Air range, which means the inner soles are removable and I can replace them with my orthotics. And of all my orthotic-friendly shoes these look the least like comfort shoes, which is big plus for me. I found these brand new in the box on eBay for about a tenner, which was a tremendous stroke of luck. The seller even threw in the matching handbag for free as they’d had no luck selling that and thought I might like it! Was that kind or what? 

Right, enough of my wittering. It’s late here and my electric blanket is singing me a siren song from the ol’ boudoir.

Au reservoir, mes amis!

Oh hai, tumblr! Well…last weekend it snowed so mightily that much as I loved the idea of pics of me leaping joyfully about in the flakes, what with tube engineering works conspiring against me, (to say nothing of the biting cold itself), I just snuggled up with my fur kids and had a Dexter-thon instead. This weekend, however, showed a distinct improvement. The light’s still a bit grotty for picture-taking, which is why I decided to take some more on home ground. So this post brings you two stylings for the price of one. Plus you get to see my bargaintastic Steve Madden biker boots in action.

I honestly don’t know what’s got into me but I’ve really had a yen for some plain dresses lately – mainly so’s I can wear them with printed jackets mind – but it’s still quite out of character for me to veer away from the prints. However, this dress is proving a bit harder to funk up than I’d imagined when I bought it. Maybe it’s the length, maybe it’s the colour, (I’m a little ambivalent about plum; it suits me well enough but it’s one of those acceptably “slenderising” fat lady colours I had more than a gutful of during my Dress Drought years), but it needs some judicious accessorising if I’m to avoid feeling like a frump in it.

I am beyond in love with these Biba-esque M&S tights I found just before Christmas, and am beginning to wish I’d bought more than one pair.

If you’re based in the UK or planning an imminent visit, I’d also like to give a shout-out to Debenhams. I scored this bold, lightweight and surprisingly versatile necklace a few years ago for under a fiver in one of their 70%off Blue Cross bunfights and they’re knocking things out again for flumpence right now. I found a couple of Matthew Williamson markdowns to die for last week and can’t wait to share them with you.

I think the frock definitely benefits from bold neckwear. In the absence of one of those faux-collar-thingies, (I like them but they’re so ubiquitous now I’d feel like a bit of a fashion victim in one), today I opted for the fabulous suffolk puffs necklace Karen made me for my birthday two years ago. However a printed scarf would do the job quite nicely too.

Dweezil was on hand to make sure my styling was Just So.

Too bad he didn’t tell me to brush his confounded fur off my remixed-for-the-thousandth-time black Monsoon shrug.

My shoes could’ve done with a polish as well. And, yes, another killer pair of tights from M&S I wish I’d bought another pair of. They don’t often come up trumps but I love the Alice-goes-Goth vibe of these.

Lastly, here’s the ring I was wearing to top it all off. I found it in Chichester for a couple of quid last Christmas. Kindly ignore the state of my mitts. This is what winter does to them no matter how much hand cream and almond oil I slather on them. Come spring, they’ll look fine again, promise.

Thanks for looking, lambkins!