Take a hike

I saw these wonderfully grunge hiking boots from F-Troupe at a press day months ago, and a casual search online showed me that they are now available to buy. They're cute, they're comfy, they're French and totally Marc by Marc. I'm fairly sure that they'll be stocked at Urban Outfitters, but if you don't want to leave the comfort of your sofa check out www.f-troupe.com and they can keep your feet cosy all winter for £183, which on a cost-per-wear basis will work out very cheaply indeed, especially if last winter was anything to go by.

Ponderings from The Boy

The Boy plays such a huge part in my style choices (more than I care to admit sometimes) that I feel I should give him a little platform to wax lyrical about fashion. He never fails to surprise me with his impressively wide knowledge of current trends, not only that but also his ability to create his very individual look without looking like a Topman or Shoreditch clone.

This week I asked him what he thinks of the soon-to-be-everywhere snood:

"The snood. Stupid sounding by name, circular and warm by nature. Whilst FF repeats "I want a snood, they're all the rage this winter" I remain cynical. "You can wear it as a hood, scarf or over your shoulders..." she says. Call me old fashioned, but isn't it just a scarf stitched up at both ends?"

Such a rationalist - Also for the record, I never ever say "all the rage"!

In another conversation he revealed to me that he regularly visits The Sartorialist, much to my delighted surprise...

Boy: Do you like the way i've rolled up my shorts? They're all doing it on The Sartorialist...
Me: You go on The Sartorialist? (Shocked silence)
Boy: Yeah, he takes really cool pictures.
Me: Oh my god, thats so cool...
Boy: I really like the ones of the old guys in suits... and he takes pictures of some really FIT women.
Me: *Sigh*(Images courtesy of www.net-a-porter.com and www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com)

Rick Owens eat your heart out

As a highstreet afficionista I'm often on the look out for the most credible high-end rip offs and this deliciously draped Warhouse leather jacket is as close to Rick Owens as I'll probably ever get. As its only £150, I think this will almost certainly be my payday treat. With its super thin tailored shape, skinny arms and general butter softness this gorgeous jacket will easily also play the part of a leather cardigan, how very bad girl indeed.

The highstreet does layers

Behold the not-too-unimpressive selection that the highstreet has created in answer to the delicious draping and layering trend that will be taking the female population by storm this autumn. With under two weeks left of August, I'm rubbing my hands in anticipation of the first proper wave of this season's collections hitting the stores.

This is by no means a complete portrayal, Topshop is notably absent (they're much harder to get images from) but I definitely think that there is enough here to get at least a little bit excited about, especially seeing as a complete Missoni layered look is sadly out of my reach... what would I give for those wrinkled leggings?

I'm also on the search for the perfect snood - you might remember my April entry where I talked of my love of them - they're back with a vengeance and they're all knitted and cosy and drapey... sigh...
(From top: River Island, Warehouse, Warehouse, Hobbs, Miss Selfridge courtesy of PRshots.com)

Fluff and nonsense

I saw this little guy hanging from a window in Covent Garden market on Saturday and I thought i'd share him with the world.

I definitely think that My New Favorite Thing will be a fan.

The sorry tale of the mismatched shoes

Readers of this blog will know that i'm not really a girl who likes her vintage clothing. This doesn't mean that the boy gets off lightly however, I do still drag him into every vintage shop that I come across in the hopes of finding something amazing.

This saturday he got the day off and so I dragged a very patient friend round Alfie's antiques market, a labyrinth of bygone goodies that just gets better everytime I go. After looking around for almost an hour for a birthday present for my wonderful mother, I found a surprisingly nice present for me.

Behold my more-than-lovely Clements Ribeiro (oh yes) shoes that I got for a satisfying £20. So rarely do I see shoes I love in my size, that these took me completely by surprise and after only a little humming and harring I haggled them down from £25 (I'm new to this). I suspect that the sales girl only agreed to my very persuasive markdown suggestion due to the fact that my wonderful shoes are actually different colours.

It looks as though they left one of them in the sun too long, so now my new challenge is to try and find a way for them to match once more, most probably easier said than done, seeing as the most helpful suggestion so far has been to leave the other one in the sun for a few weeks... (thanks mum).

So many challenges so little time!

Drool...

This amazing striped number is by Maje and I know at least four people that have already got their eye on it. It looks as though I might have to do some fast clicking to make sure it get one. Watch this space.

It was only a matter of time...

We all knew it was going to happen, and judging by the photos that are making the rounds on the internet this week, Ugly Betty has had a makeover. Gone are the braces and the frizz and the glasses, and in their place is a sleeker Betty whose clothes actually don't make you feel dizzy.

I'm not sure if this is a pity - if anybody is familiar with the way the original series went - it was always going to happen, but it just further goes to prove that Betty in all her infinate kindness, with her big heart and lovely personality was never going to be enough.

Pretty Betty is now the whole acceptably beautiful package. How and why the girl who believes that inner beauty is more important goes through this change is unclear, it seems to go against everything her character represents, and the whole point of having a 'plain Jane' lead in the first place. Somehow I find it hard to see how the comedy will still work its magic, but who knows? I guess we'll find out next season.

SCOSHA

Ever since that missed opportunity in Covent Garden, I have been on the hunt for a perfect 'peace sign' adornment. This lovely delicate little number from hot NY designers SCOSHA is definitely up there on my wish-list. At £140 it is perhaps a little steep, but if you look closely you can see that there is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it diamond nestled in the centre... clearly worth every penny.

Check out the whole of this Olsen twin worthy range (in both price and presentation) at Net-a-Porter.com

A tale of two lashes

I'm not normally one to buy into the celeb-highstreet colabs, and to be fair I didn't actually buy anything so technically I still haven't, but I thought I'd convey my great surprise at just how nice the 'Nadine' version of the Eyelure and Girls Aloud false lashes are.

I'd been given them as part of a leaving gift a while ago and having lacked the opportunity to give them a whirl, I thought that the Dubai races at Ascot would be the perfect place to try them out.

Despite initially spilling the glue on the floor and accidentally mixing up the left from the right I finally managed to stick them on and they lasted all day long (until I felt a little worse for wear later and had to pull them off as they were obscuring my vision - long story).

Unfortunately I stashed them in the inside pocket of my clutch and later found out that this form of sqaushing has now rendered them unwearable for future events.

I would almost certainly buy them in future, although I think this has more to do with the particular style which I loved, rather than my wanting to actually look like a member of Girls Aloud. They're almost normal enough to wear everyday, but personally I'd avoid the Cheryl ones because, let's face it you're not fooling anyone...

Teen spirit

Had you told the 14 year old me that one day I would be attempting to make it in the crazy and competetive world of fashion I would probably have thought that you were either a) attempting to dent my already low self esteem, the result of a frizzy mess of hair, big eyebrows and general nerdiness, or b) clapped my hands with glee and gone out and bought a yellow vest and matching cropped trousers because thats what I thought was cool.

To my geeky teen self's credit, I did sometimes manage to find reasonably nice tops in Miss Selfridge (my absolute favoruite shop at the time) and team them with jeans because lets face it thats what all teenagers wore in Bromley if they weren't in Addidas tracksuits (they pretty much all were). So jeans and T-shirts and the occasional short skirt (from Morgan, still treasure it) were my weekend uniform, along with all of my friends.

Yesterday I read in the Sunday times Style magazine that teenagers in Britain are now the most clothes-obsessed youngsters in the world. Apparently with some spending up to £1000 at a time in Topshop. Its worth noting that these are the children of the rich mummy and daddy demographic of said publication and so perhaps are not an accurate representation of what is really going on.

That said however, teenagers have much more style, and much more choice than I did when I was that age. Topshop is the king of choice, and the place to spend all your allowance to your hearts content, along with all the legions of highstreet stores trying to capture some of this fashion zeigeist. The whole media is much more in tune to teenagers needs and the inter-twining of fashion and music means that kids are much cooler from earlier on, simply by emulating the 'cool' London sceners we're all reading about constantly. The fact that so many young stars are wearing and collaborating with the highstreet, which in turn accurately steals trends from the catwalks, means that fashion is more accessable and affordable that it ever has been before.

I often see teens on Oxford street and wish that I'd even had a slither of the choice that they have now. It makes me feel old and ever so slightly jealous that when they look back, they might cringe at the hair or the makeup but the clothes, captured in photographs and posted on facebook, will always look amazing long after those trends have faded.

Gap looks to the future

As of today Gap has finally entered the world of online selling thanks to those very clever people at ASOS. Perfect for all your basics as well as your chunky-knit needs for the coming autumn, I have a feeling that this will be a very successful venture for both fashion behemoths.

I was actually in there yesterday and took a picture (above) of a look I can't wait to emulate - A.P.C. for a third of the price- transitional dressing at its best.

Check it out www.asos.com

M&S magic

Please ignore the cheesy photos, the lovely Helenka vest from Marks and Sparks has taken our HQ by storm. All the savvy-fashionistas are wearing them in all colours, and as usual I've been slow off the mark. They're only £10 (£5 in neon pink and yellow if you're quick enough to snap up the final few) and its really not a case of either or, at our office its almost de rigeour to own a minimum of two.

Perfect for layering under almost anything, the trick is to wear the black and white ones with a matching bra, the neon ones you can go a little clashing crazy with if you're feeling brave. The only no-no would be wearing them on their own as a top. A peep of lace can be sexy, a whole lot makes you look like you charge by the hour.

A nice, but unexpectedly huge trend... M&S should be very pleased with itself.

The perfect jegging

For many of us cash-strapped Londoners, the last Friday of the month signals the wonderful end of a hard months slog and the chance to spend some of our hard-earned cash. Cliche? Oh yes, but as this was my first pay check in a good long while I was ready to spend...

Unfortunately however, there's almost nothing out there worth buying. Obviously you don't have to spend all your money at once, but I was finding it hard to spend any money at all. After visiting H&M, Zara (twice), Urban Outfitters, Uniqlo, Gap, Topshop (thrice) and all the other usual highstreet subjects, I happened upon Republic. The name itself is enough to scare a highstreet-loving fashionista off, if the interminable amount of Bench stuff hasn't already. Its a sort of surfer-meets-chav-meets-rare-gem kind of place, and thankfully I managed to find the latter.

Behold my marvellous jeggings (all the other names for them are even more ridiculous or long-winded). So they don't look that amazing on a plastic mannequin, or probably on my sorry, saggy behind either, but the compliments I got today at work, makes me feel as though I actually found something worth buying, and they haven't gotten baggy yet, brilliant.

I also found this lovely little top on one of my Topshop endeavours - its almost imossible to leave that place without buying something. Choices might be thin on the ground, but if you really are desperate to spend, they're definitely out there, I only had to try moderately hard.

I love Boxie

I've loved the T-shirts on this website ever since a clever clever person wrote a tiny piece on them in Style magazine last year. They're awesome. They're cool without trying to be, or at least it appears that way - its always difficult to tell as too many people are so damn cool nowadays anyway - but suffice to say, if a T-shirt can actually make you look like less of a loser then Boxie is on winning form.

With catchy, unheard of slogans like the one above (my absolute favourite, please ignore the slightly 'hard' looking model), they're only £23. A little random, but a rather sweet and kooky "about us" section seems to explain it all, or in actual fact sheds no light on the idea behind the company whatsoever but at the same time still manages to draw you in.

A little bit like a weird arthouse film that you watch but have no chance of ever understanding, either you'll think they're super cool or that its completely pretentious bollocks.

You can even send in a story that has shaped your life in some way, and they'll create a catchy slogan based on that story in their T-spoke section. You won't know what exactly they've written until you get it, which is the wonderful charm, or sheer horror of it all, but either way they're definitely worth a glance... www.iloveboxie.com