At Home I'm A Tourist

Confessions of a Shopaholic is a verrrry strange film, with a great cast, and a somewhat rubbish script. Fairly enjoyable provided you leave your brain behind; could have been great. I read one of the original Shopaholic novels, and the airheaded stupidity of the main character is faithfully reflected in the film.

I have to say, anyone suffering from major credit card debt will find it pretty damned triggering - the heroine is ooh, about $16,000 in debt, maxing out about 12 cards in rotation and constantly being chased by debt collectors. Although she lies constantly, she is of course good-hearted and genuine or she'd never get Colin Firth Hugh Dancy to fall for her.

Despite the subject matter, the film is still a love letter to the joys of designer shopping (just as the novels were). There is the teeniest tiniest faintest critique of rampant consumerism in here, but you'd have to concentrate quite hard. I've seen lofty reviews saying that this is all in poor poor taste given these straitened times, but at some level, I think the sheer ambivalence of films like this towards spending explains exactly why people would run up debts...

I'm always interested to note that while Naomi Wolf wrote The beauty myth about the cosmetics industry, there is no comparable critique of the fashion industry. Yes, you have critiques of Size Zero, body fascism and sweatshops, but there's not much criticising of the industry that tries so hard to make us throw away our clothes every year, and to convince that (whatever we earn), an It bag is a mere essential.

Following my last post, I went looking for fashion blogs on the interwebs. There are very many, very good ones, many of them somewhat serious, but the one I have entirely lost my heart (and indeed much of my evening) to is Daddy Likey. I went back and looked at some the features today and nearly cried laughing.

Highlights:

Don'Cha Show Us Your Chocha (models in very short dresses)

Five Men's Fashion First Impressions

Advanced Fashion Quiz. Absolute gold, this one.

I need more help on embedding photos into LJ. Is the best plan to put them on Photobucket, rather than LJ Scrapbook? I'd like to make them a bit bigger than the Scrapbook image shown below. I want to do some Wardrobe Confidential sorts of posts, I have no idea why.

Anyway: I bought these very early one Saturday morning, in the grip of a vicious hangover. I feel they're from my 1970s Retro Bling period, and I'm going to wear them with dark indigo jeans. Like my black Prada kitten heels, they're probably destined for limited wear, really, but they're pretty comfortable.



I feel I've finally worked out some of the unspoken rules of 2008 UK female fashion, maybe even enough to go off and make some semi-precious necklaces in the right proportions to match. A lot of the shops have softened the hideous smocky edges of what they were offering this time last year, and are full of very nice stuff indeed. Warehouse, for example, has some beautiful things, and also Oasis, neither of which I can normally go near. All we need now is some heat and sunshine.

Men's fashion - is it me or is the High Street in some dreary and unflattering phase? I keep seeing the most incredibly fugly horizontal-striped t-shirts. Why yes, Top Shop I am looking at you.

Now I have a deep desire to go out and style someone...0.0

ETA: Why on earth, you may say, does she have gold blingy wedges when anyone who has ever met the woman will tell you she wears flats permanently?? Well: it's a question of proportion, I think. I have a whole lot of skirts that I don't wear very much, and I've come to the conclusions that the way to wear skirts more is to find the shoe that will flatter both you and the garment. What's right will depend on your personal idiosyncrasies (height, build, preferred styles etc).

With knee-length, A-line style skirts (for example, skirts that sit on the hip with a gentle flare), I can cheerfully get away with any flat shoe, although I've found that chunky flat sandals work the best. However, I also have a load of mid-calf length skirts and these are a lot harder to wear. Some of these skirts were always meant to be that length and some need some drastic shortening. Unfortunately, as I'm 5 feet nothing, all these midi-length skirts look like complete hell on me if I wear flats. I basically look like someone cut my legs off. However, stick a heel in there and hey presto, my legs look sort of normal, I have ankles as opposed to stumps, and the formerly unflattering skirt length is now positively wearable. So, the gold sandals are the way of reclaiming all those smart but rather long skirts that are languishing in my wardrobe.

stylishly_yours has been listing people's Personal Style Rules. I've been reading lots of other people's, and feel the need to share mine...I feel ridiculous for doing this, but it was quite fun.

1. Flatter your body shape at all times

This could be my rule 1-10, really. I tend to follow the Trinny & Susannah rules for dressing the top half of my body – I have an unfeasibly large rack. Also, if I wear long skirts or flowery things I can very easily look like one of those woolly dolls that cover loo rolls. So personally it's all about the curves and the proportions. Things that work:
• Lycra-mix or cotton jersey tops
• Deep V necks
• Tops fitted to an hourglass shape
• Short A-line skirts, knee length
• Bootcut jeans.

2. Devise a flattering uniform

This sounds really calculated. That's because it is really calculated. Once I fix upon something I really like, I tend to buy it in several different colours, like the bunch of wrap tops I bought last year.

Current uniform, for meetings: patterned shortish skirt, deep V top, fitted jacket, boots
For casual: boot-cut jeans, fitted deep V top, ankle boots.

3. Buy coats and jackets that you love and make you look great.

It's the first thing everyone sees and the first thing you will see in a mirror. My grey anorak flouts this rule and I hate myself every time I wear it.

ravurian has a black wool peacoat that is just astoundingly flattering. Search out these things. These will usually conform to style guidelines for your shape.

If they make you purr quietly when you try them on, that's a good sign.( 4. Keep up with fashion, if only to reject it )