Ask yourself; what would the world be without midi-skirts? They have had a full revival in the last year and I just can’t get enough of them. Burberry has never been one of my favorite brands but I have to say, I have been reformed after this tantalising catwalk show. This seemless blend of British tailoring, classic Burberry style and African inspired textures/colours is mouthwatering. I want everything! Especially a bobble hat!
The netball silhouette (as Simon Chilvers so rightfully put it) is a total winner for me. Absolutely loving the bright colours and playful flowers in this wonderful colection!
The NEED.
So this morning (while Raz wasn’t watching) I finally purchased my first Thursday Friday bag! I’ve been totally obsessed with it since one walked by me, on the arm of a wonderfully stylish man, in Carnaby Street in London. That was two months ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t totally love their last design.. But the latest one I simply HAD TO HAVE! And for $65USD, only slightly overpriced, I couldn’t say no. This was so NOT a want!
They kind of fancy themselves the anti-status status symbol, and are somehow straddling the line between snobbery and democracy (or just brilliantly blurring it), kind of like Karl Lagerfeld saying it’s his duty to do a line for Macy’s.
-Glamour
The WANT
This is England. And what kind of resident am I without the ultimate British accessory? No, not socks and sandles. Wellies! How could I possibly live any longer without a pair of Hunter Wellies? Good for walking, comfort, looking cool, stomping though creeks and other wet places and much much more. Not to mention, you can now buy little Hunter socks that fit perfectly inside! Amazing as these boots are, they come at a price and I’m going to have to save for them.
If they’re good enough for Alexa, they’re good enough for me.
The CRAFT.
Basically I’ve decided to make pillow cases. No biggy, I just can’t see myself paying $100 for pillows. They are such a cute idea though, so I’m planning on stealing it and whipping some personalised scrabble-style cases myself. How hard can it be?
They are available at Etsy if you actually fancy buying them!
Today I am working a split shift. I worked 11 untill 3 this morning and tonight I’m back into the restaurant for a 7 untill midnight shift. This means that I am now perched on a chair in the garden, soaking up some sunshine in my four hours off and listening to the wind rustle though the berry laden trees. It’s all very Jane Austin.
Earlier on today, during the quiet patch between breakfast and lunch, two women walked into the cafe. At that particular point in time there were no other customers sitting at any table and I greeted them with my usual “Hi ladies, take a seat anywhere you like and I’ll be right over” from behind the coffee machine. At this, obviously shocking statement, they stopped dead in their tracks and looked around gobsmacked. Huddling close, they looked to the front of the cafe (with the sofa by the sunny window), to the long row of cafeteria style tables down the side and back down to the big bulky tables right next to the bar. Clearly undecided, they muttered between themselves, nodded a few times and took off with their heads held high to the restaurant side of my establishment. “Can we sit on that side?” the blonde one said to me, “Sure” I replied, “but it’s quite dark and quiet around there because it’s mainly open at night..” I trailed off as they wandered around there anyway. I heard them laugh awkwardly and come back around the corner into the cafe “It is a bit dark around there isn’t it?” the blonde lady said to me as the passed by heading to the front tables. (“Yes, you f****** idiot. I didn’t just tell you it was dark around there for kicks” I thought to myself). As I turned to grab some menu’s for them they finally made a decision about where to sit. While my back was turned blondie and her friend had lowered themselves at the table where my previous customers had been sitting. The ONE table in the ENTIRE cafe that hadn’t been cleared.
Apart from being absolutely furious (FYI I don’t love my job and little unimportant things tend to drive me insane) this whole situation got me thinking about choice.
I’m moving inside now because it looks like rain. Surprise surprise.
Choice. Why does it scare us so much? Choice’s about what to order from the Thai place down the street (that you always go to), about what bank to bank with and what colour card to get (because it says so much about you), what to call your unborn child, what to do with your hair; layer it or just get your spit-ends chopped off… Decisions, decisions! Is it because we want to be different or want to fit in, because we like comfy things or things that make us look sool? It’s different for every single person. Working in fashion, especially high-end, you become callus to indecisiveness. It was always a breath of fresh air when someone made a decision about two absolutely fabulous dresses on the spot without having to go away and think about it over coffee with their girlfriends, but alas, it’s also a rarity. On the opposite end of the scale there are those who shy away from choice, with excuses like “I know what I like”, and always order/buy/listen/eat the same things day in day out. I don’t know what’s worse.
One of the things I love about the fashion industry is the wonderful illusion of choice. We live in a time when you can pretty much wear whatever you like. The options are limitless, you just have to know where to look. (And if you can’t find it; create it and sell it online like Thursday Friday did with their “Birkin Bag” Tote Bag.) This is 2011 and you can buy into any trend, cult, scene or style that you choose. But at the end of the day, be aware that you are buying into something that has already be chosen by you. Chosen for you by the people at the top; think Google, BP, Apple, Ford, Vogue. One thing that keeps coming to mind as I write this is that wonderful scene from The Devil Wears Prada in the office during the run through. You know the one I’m talking about..
I have my copy of Vogue sitting next to right now to and I can’t help but notice that every model looks the same, the clothes all look the same, everything the same same same! I’ve seen it all before! And that’s not because I’m some fashion guru, it’s because vintage is in and the industry hasn’t brought out a new silhouettesince the 80′s. AND even though I know I’ll look like every other young indie/vintage girl in Bristol, I STILL WANT THAT DALMATIAN PRINT JACKET! But this blog isn’t about the many paradoxes of the fashion world, it’s about choice. Do we have a choice or not when it comes to fashion, technology (your really only either a Mac or a PC aren’t you?) and cars? Do we struggle with day-to-day decisions because we live in an age of endless choices or are we destined to choose product already desinged to intrest us? I mean, did the women at work choose the window seat because they wanted the little wobbly table or were they an insecure pair that felt less awkward sitting at a table that the people before them had already approved?
Finally, “sigh”, I have been reconnected with the world. Sky Unlimited Braodband has officially been installed! It’s funny how those words seem to flow so effortlessly from my completely out of practice fingers despite
the time (midnight, after a long dinner shift) and my, let’s face it, absolutely disgraceful lack of blogs. No, I haven’t been discovering myself, nor have I been super-duper totally busy being important, and no, I have not been holidaying in some incredible exotic location so amazing that my words would not do it justice (I’m imagining The Beach here) either. I’ve just been goddamn busy and ferociously unmotivated.
I’m sorry to say that my weekly dose of Brittain and Ireland’s Next Top Model and buying fashion magazines with my tip money just hasn’t been cutting it as genuine inspiration of late. A couple of weeks ago, around the time of the London riots (when I briefly took up buying The Guardian in a bid to boost conversational skills among the locals and my general education) I began tirelessly researching mens footwear and why it’s still so bloody awful. I was asking
random men why they wore such horrible shoes day in day out, Googling names like Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith and Lyle & Scott just to confirm that they actually made decent male footwear AND SOLD IT and stalking fashionable mens feet down the street like some sort of junkie.
It was going to be a wonderful blog.. But then- like a life size sigh- I just closed my laptop, put on some tights and started running. So I guess it wasn’t all bad- I mean, apart from sounding a bit like Forest Gump and the not-blogging thing at least I lost some weight. But after a while my life without writing (and clothing, shoes and clutches) inevitably became an empty life.. Even if they were replaced with something fabulous for my ass!
The running has slowed in the last few weeks since I’ve begun working 7days a week, leaving me with just about nothing; inspiration completely dried up, tired and underpaid. However, on the plus side, I recently discovered that my mother has been under the impression (and has most definitely told her circle of friends) that I have been living in London working in a kebab shop. It’s a good feeling knowing that your own mother A. Know’s what city you live in and B. Thinks so highly of you that she actually believed you would be desperate enough to work in a kebab shop. I might be on minimum wage mum but for god’s sake, I work in a Turkish restaurant. We serve the kebabs on plates!
Unfortionately this hasn’t really been much of a fashion (or travel) blog but I just thought it was about bloody time I stopped feeling sorry for myself and spat some words out. Spat some meaningless words out to the world. Isn’t that what the internet is all about anyway? It’s good to be back.
Two days ago I was paid (severely under) for my first shift since April. On my way home in cold Bristol rain, clutching my £2.75 tip money, I thought to myself “fuck it!”, scooted into the nearest Tesco’s and bought the September issue of Vogue. With £4 of International Collections in my hot little hands I felt like walking up to a random person in the streets, holding my gleaming fashion bible up to the their face and quoting Carrie Bradshaw.
“… Sometimes I would buy Vogue instead of dinner. I just felt it fed me more.”
Don’s ask me why, I just felt like it.
Over the years I’ve dabbled in international Vogue purchases- occasionally picking up an Indian or Italian copy just to gawk over their much-more-glam bigger budget photo shoots and to make people on the bus think that I could speak another language- but this time I could actually see myself in some of the clothes.
No, I haven’t lost exuberant amounts of weight and taken up catwalk modelling. Nor am I paid enough to even consider being able to afford anything from any of the pages that don’ts say More DASH than CASH! But for the fist time in my, let’s call it; Northern Hemisphere Life, it’s actually cold enough to don a friggin’ jacket. Nay, a trench coat! My imagination has finally been let out of the (hot) cage!
I’m currently sat (British people don’t seem to say sitting) alone in the Tobacco Factory, a Bristol institution, scrawling in the back of my diary . I have a papercut on my right pinky that is leaving bloody splodges across my page as I write, while the guy next to me clicks away on his shining Mac and I am sucking down some greatly needed cider pints bought with todays tip money. I am working a not so great job in the wrong industry and I recently broke the zip on my American Apparel denim shorts. Oh, and I’m still not smoking- totally crap. I’m like Bridget Jones but with a boyfriend, no joke! But, you know what, it doesn’t even matter.. Because I can wear coats!
My pick:
Fall 2011 Lookbook
It’s freezing here. Even people who have never left the UK and are callis to sleet say it’s freezing! Gone are the days of seeing hot tanned skinny surfer models in short shorts in summer and getting depressed because my thighs touch in the middle! This is England. It’s too cold to show flesh here!
In grade seven (yes, 2002) my classmates and I were asked that wonderful question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A question I am still asking myself.
To this we eleven and twelve-year olds answered in proud and excited calls from across our tiny room. “A doctor!”, “A computer game designer!” “A vet!” Is what they probably said. I only remember two replies; mine and my good friend Jock’s.
I told the class that I would definitely be a pilot in the Air Force and then go onto fly QANTAS; an answer probably influenced by a current obsession (the fashion industry is much better suited I think). My friend, who was much taller and stronger than the other boys in our class said, quite casually I remember, that he would grow up to be either a professional rugby player or a women’s shoe designer.
They laughed.
This month Jock Fairweather launched his first collection to an international audience. He currently lives in London designing beautiful, cutting-edge women’s shoes with real attitude. Have a peak at his new website and ogle away. Congratulations old friend, I am more than proud.
To my wonderfully forgiving readers,
This is my 100th post!
If someone had told me when I published my first blog (a tribute to Anna Dello Russo) that by the time I got around to writing my 100th I would be living on the other side of the world, with the man of my dreams and writing about all the places we travel- I probably would have laughed. In fact, I definitely would have laughed, then lit up a fag and contemplated how good that situation sounded.
I originally started writing this blog because I needed to get the way I felt towards fashion, style and body image out of my system. It definitely got a lot out. Somehow, writing it also helped me through some very difficult periods. Even though my pen-to-paper (or finger-to-key) skills have never quite been revolutionary, posting virtual scripts about Michelle Obama’s body type or fashion faux pas to an invisible audience has always been a cleansing escape from reality.
To me, the fashion world is a complete paradox and can be severely hard to navigate, let alone keep up with. It is beautiful, new, everything-you-ever-dreamed-of-in-one-amazing-dress, but also totally underweight, always overpriced and (with obvious exceptions) exhaustingly consumer driven.
Despite all that, I truly believe that if you can dress your individual shape with style that reflects your soul, then you will genuinely be happier. This can be a struggle, daily, but fashion is the way we project ourselves to the world (whether some like it or not) and doing it half-heartedly just isn’t cool in my books.
In saying that, I haven’t picked up a fashion magazine in 8 months now. I find it overwhelmingly difficult to gaze a gleaming pages full of new exciting trends that I just can’t afford because I am travelling around Europe and living out of a suitcase. But hey, you can’t win ‘em all right?
Luckily, writing about travelling for the last three months has been a wonderful challenge that has kept me busy without Vogue. Seeing fashion abroad is very cool indeed- Milano, Istanbul, Florence, London, Edinbugh; they all have an individual edge- and now that I have been greeted with the comforts of home again (and hopefully a decent camera.. Wink wink family members) my two favorite topics will seamlessly clasp hands and see me through the next hundred posts.
Without getting all soppy, and trying to avoid the whole award accepting speech, “I just want to thank my family and God…” Hah! I just want to say that I write the dresser upper very honestly and always from the heart. I try not to swear in every post, am genuinely working on improving my dreadful spelling and I plan to stick this out until someone totally desperate is willing to give me a corner of a newspaper to write in every now and then. Basically, I’m doing my best for ya’ll.
On that note, thanks for the ongoing support, however it may have come, and for reading my little blog.
thedresserupper. / Lucy.
For the last few weeks we have been staying with good friends in Bristol. Not only is Bristol a great city to live in; it’s full of life, there are constant festivals and shows and it’s just generally good to look at, but we’ve also been in such great company that time has been flying by. This week we have decided, all four of us, to compete in a Come Dine with Me cook-off. The rules are the same as the TV show (everyone cooks a starter, main and desert, and all have to provide some sort of entertainment for the evening) but this time everything must cost less than forty quid. I’m not going to lie.. I’m in it to win. So for the last few days, amoungst job and house hunting, I have been meticulously researching starters, seasonal fruits, good soup recipes.. You name it! Although I can’t tell you what my menu entales (or anyone elses, because it has to be surprise), I can tell you that the mood at 18 Bramley Copse is downright excitable.
I’m telling you this because this afternoon when I came back find to my laptop sitting on a pile of opened cookbooks (namely by Nigella, Jamie and Ainsley) it gave me a gigantic lightning strike of a thought.. About ones soul. And, well, feeding it. I really like the idea of soul food. The idea that experiencing, reading, seeing, researching, praying, whatever-ing things out of your comfort zone or beyond your conscious comprehension can really make you a deeper person. For some reason I thought about going to Gallipoli, to ANZAC Cove.
I’ve been to Gallipoli once before, with my best friend in 2008, and I remember it being heartrenchingly sad, but more so genuinely peaceful. It was same this time. For those of you who don’t know, there is a wonderful memorial outside the cove inscribed with a tribute to the ANZAC’s killed at Gallipoli from Turkey’s first President. In 1934 Atatürk wrote:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours… you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well.
Need I say more?
This time, as well as doing a really good tour around Gallipoli, we also decided to go snorkeling over a WW1 ship wreck in ANZAC Cove. There were five of us: the very nice laid back Turkish instructor and local ranger who I can’t for the life of me remember his name, Raz, myself, Alana the wickedly bubbly Adelaidian and Peter, a thoughtful and wise man from the Gold Coast. We made a good team.
The wreck was under the two white boys in the middle.
There was something so beautiful about floating over the top of this sunken ship. Something so peaceful, but at the same time so horrendous. The water was so calm, so crystal clear. When you dip your head back underwater all you can hear is the sound of fish nibbling coral and all you can see is this mammoth black ship sitting in sand, covered with swaying weed. As I looked back at the beach I remember imagining it stricken of trees and covered in men with guns, digging trenches and carrying friends back from bloody battlefields. I was imagining the sound of gunfire, while little schools of colourful fish swam past my toes. Absolute soul food.
