THE Dress - The Mulberry Raglan

Most people have an elusive item...something that you want but never managed to get your hands on. The item that's been and gone seasons ago. The thing that you stalk ebay for knowing that the chances of it coming up is slim, it coming up in your size is like winning the lottery. Mine is The Mulberry Raglan Dress from the Autumn/Winter 2010 collection....or should I say was!

That was until I took a visit to Bicester Village in Oxford. Every time i go into Mulberry I feel like touching all the lovely bags and clothes. I skipped to the back of the shop and let out a little squeal when I saw it hanging alone on the rail...IN MY SIZE.

Now I know Mulberry isn't cheap but I think for a special one off purchase it's totally worth it. Better still it was over £500 cheaper because I got it in the outlet shop. If you haven't been to Bicester Village and you are after an elusive designer item I totally recommend it. I plan to christen the dress at my little sister's 21. Do you like?

The Mulberry Raglan Dress

The cute little bird they put on the Mulberry shopping bag

Mulberry Raglan Dress Autumn/Winter 2010

Cherry Healey Style

Cherry Healey: www.cherryhealey.com

Over the past few weeks I have been really been enjoying watching Cherry Healey in Cherry's Body Dilemma's and Cherry's Cash Dilemma's on BBC 3. Cherry is excellent and I really like the really natural way she takes on all kinds of challenges as we follow her on her adventures to meet all kinds of interesting people.

There's one thing that seems to be almost as popular as her programme - her style! It's not hard to see why. If you head over to her blog here you can see some of her outfit photos where she works out her Fashion Maths which = lots of great outfits. My favourite is this one. A great leather jacket that lost of readers on Cherry's Blog seem to love. Hopefully she will reveal where it is from. It's such a shame the Zara maxi skirt isn't avaliable anymore but I am concidering making my own. It should be quite easy to do if I can track down some great fabric.

It's not just Cherry's clothes that we love. She wears her hair in some lovely up-do's including an Erdem style head plat or "Princess Leia Hair" as she calls it, which you can learn to do here. I noticed during the programmes that she wears a lovely shade of red lipstick that I just hadn't managed to find in the shops so I got in touch with her to find out exactly which one she wore. Cherry said

"Hi Claire,
I searched for such a long time before I found a red that suited my colourings - Chanel no.14 seems to do the trick - the 'classic' is the no.64 but I think it's just slightly too dark. I also mix the lipstick with Superdrug's Barry M brand lipliner in red - it's so good you could pretty much get away with wearing that alone - and it lasts forever. And it's about £3. Yes please. Cxxx"

So there you have it! I will post again after I have given the shades she suggests a try. There's nothing like a bit of red lipstick to brighten up my outfits on these dark Autumn days.

Gold Finger (Nails!)

Ever since Victoria Beckham tweeted back in May that there were 3 new metallic Autumn shades of Chanel nail polish I got ridiculously excited. As you can see here I have a bit of a thing for Chanel polish and although it's on the pricier side, it does last a while and the colours are always the 'hot' colours of the season. As soon as I saw the tweet I knew I had to have the gold polish - 531 Peridot. It nearly didn't happen though as I went to every stockist in Birmingham who were all sold out and eventually got the second to last bottle in Worcester's House of Fraser. If you like it there may still be the odd one around, try calling your local Boots, Debenhams or House of Fraser. If you still can't find it then it is already selling on ebay with not too high a mark-up. After all...if it's good enough for Mrs B it's good enough for me!

Photo: Victoria Beckham Twitter

Wedding Fever?

Sorry it's been a while since I have posted. I've been so busy with my new job I just haven't had time to post.

What with all the wedding fever in the build up to the Royal Wedding you may be a little wedding-ed out. But if like me you seem to have loads of invites landing on your doormat, with no clue what you are going to ware then this might give you some inspiration.

I have had some moments of panic trying to find an amazing outfit for my friends wedding coming up and although there is loads out there it took me ages to find an outfit that I loved. Until I saw this amazing Turquoise Siri Lace Dress from Whistles. Perfect colour, perfect style (very Kate Middleton lace!) the only problem is the price, £275! If I wear it for lots of summer weddings though I might just get away with it. Couldn't I?

Whistles Siri Lace Dress (image whistles.co.uk)

In my hunt for the perfect wedding outfit I have also spotted this beautiful pink floral fascinator on non other than the lovely Danni Minogue in the Marks and Spencer adverts. I was a bit gutted when I could only find the dress from the ads online but after a bit of investigation and some help from the lovely customer service team I have found out it's going to be in store and online from 25th May for £35.

Danni Minogue Floral fascinator (image: http://www.marksandspencer.com/)

I'm not sure if the two colours will clash in the right way so I may go for a butterfly fascinator from Chapeau Claudette.

Chapeau Claudette Butterfly Fascinator (image: Ilovehats.co.uk)

Chapeau Claudette as seen in Look Magazine

Even though Princess Beatrice got slated for her Royal Wedding fascinator I do love this Butterfly one she wore a few years ago.

Anyway, I will hopefully put together an outfit and post a photo here when I do. If you have a killer summer wedding outfit then email me a photo and I will put it up here too.

Going Bananas!

Thanks to Topshop I can now go bananas whenever I want! The Topshop Banana Drop Earrings are only £6.50, a bargain compared to the Prada version for £140.

Topshop Banana Drop Earrings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outfit Photo: My Whistles Carrie Skirt

Outfit: Carrie Skirt, (Whistles) Knitted White Cotton Cable Jumper (Topshop) ACE Black Suede Lace Up Boots (Topshop) Brown Leather Bag (Vintage)

My Whistles Carrie Skirt has arrived and I thought it was about time I shared an outfit photo with you. I settled on the knee length one in the end and I love wearing it. I'm sure I will be wearing it well in to the summer plus, I'm loving it even more now the lovely people at Whistles have said they will 'overlock' the hem for me.

The skirt has a frayed style to the hem but I was worried because it was starting to fray quite a lot (you can see it a bit in my photos) Then I got in touch with them to ask what I should do and they very kindly offered to make the 'overlocked hem' alteration to it for me to make it much more practical. They even offered to pay the postage for me to send it back to them to get the alteration made. Great news, so now I know my skirt won't totally fray away.

I'm so impressed by Whistles. I have written about how great they are before but this is now the best customer service I have ever had and it definitely is the kind of brand I would come back to- and I'm hard to impress! I can't wait to get something else from the Spring Collection.

Dearne, Aka Notting Hill Girl has taken on a challenge to wear her Carrie skirt as much as possible before the end of the Summer. Easy! I can think of 100's of ways to wear it. You can see how she will be wearing her skirt here. I would love to see how you are wearing yours. Feel free to post a link to your outfit photo in the comments here.

Retro Style: The Dress

This week everyone has been talking about the rumour that Sarah Burton from Alexander McQueen will be creating Kate Middleton's wedding dress.  

Although she laughed it off and has now even admitted to New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn that she won't be designing it. I thought her collection a Paris Fashion Week definitely showed off  a show stopping wedding dress fit for a princess. It got me thinking of a very special photo of my parents I thought I would share.

Retro isn't it? Not as glam as the McQueen dress but fabulous all the same. Check out the perm on my dad too!