But don’t you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my Blue suede shoes. ~ Elvis Presley.
There’s a sale still on at Dorothy Perkins – certain items of clothing and accessories have 20% off for a limited time. They haven’t stated how long this is for though! I’ve been a bit loopy and bought a few pieces plus used the 20% student discount on top of that. They are also doing a free delivery until midnight today (UK 1st February).
So I’m a jammy dodger – I have four lovely pieces to add to my wardrobe in anticipation of a wardrobe spring clean. There really is far too much in my wardrobe which makes it hard to think about what I want to wear first thing in the morning. This means that some of my creativity is dropped by the wayside and I end up going for things I keep wearing over and over whilst other interesting clothes just stay hung up for months on end until I rediscover them. My resolution is hopefully to clear things out a bit and get rid of the clutter I don’t need or should put in storage. My shoes and bags and scarves are even worse – they definitely need a monster storage and sorting out session!
Perhaps 2010 can be more of a creative year, not just with clothes, but with all aspects of my life – my sister and I’s jewellery business, my writing, searching for an interesting and hopefully creative paying job. Sometimes hope is all that there is, and you have to survive on that and keeeping busy with various projects. I’ve come to realise that the reason I’ve been depressed isn’t necessarily money – its because I need to find a routine and keep track and on top of all these projects I’m doing. Things drop by the wayside if you don’t keep track of them!
Anyway, if you’re new here, I primarily blog on Cats and Chocolate – I have a tendency to break up my life into manageable chunks and sort of use Cats and Chocolate for everything, whilst my other blogs give me more freedom to intensely focus on fashion and writing (a blog called A Novel Journey). At some point, I might look back and think about how I could turn some of my blogs into a self published book – not for the public but for passing to my family and as a personal keepsake. I enjoy blogging here because I can indulge that part of me that gets all excited about dressing up and making up.
Clothes are never a frivolity: they always mean something. ~ James Laver.
Lots of brilliant things have happened recently in the world of plus size fashion/clothing. For a start, ASOS has launched their Plus Size line, which I’m quite 
excited about because they’re an interesting and exciting brand. Their Curve line is mostly basics at the moment, but there are some buzzy pieces, like the dress with diamond and polka dot print and flowers. I’ve also looked around their usual collection and the t-shirts in particular are brilliant – I’ve seen so many designs that I like. They go up to UK size 18 and 20 on some of the mainline t-shirts, but for the most part, the main line goes up to size UK 18.
Evans are stepping up their game and I’ve seen some brilliant pieces popping up on their site recently – their spring line is very much on the pulse of fashion, with something for everybody. Deena at Fat Girls Like Nice Clothes Too was invited to a preview of the Arcadia Spring/Summer lines back in November and the photos look like we can expect some good stuff. I’ve had a mosy around their site and some of the trends are starting to pop up properly – florals, polka dots, nudes and the nautical theme.
It feels so much more like retailers are thinking about their plus size customers differently – that we are people who like fashion and don’t want to clothe ourselves in boring, frumpy clothes. We use clothes to make ourselves feel good, not melt into the shadows (unless you’re an undercover agent, of course…), and express our identities. Why should we be relegated to the bottom of the fashion pile? It’s good that there is now more choice for women, whatever their size or shape.
There is a fabulous article written by the guardian (out yesterday) featuring fabulous fat bloggers – hooray! It makes me feel all warm and bouncy inside 
It feels good when things get highlighted in the media, and hopefully the publicity will lead to good things…
There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they would mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. ~ Virginia Woolf.
Kirby Grips: Dorothy Perkins; Mix and Match Dress: Evans; Tunic: Evans; Body: Dorothy Perkins; Cardigan: Dorothy Perkins; Navy Crochet Dress: Dorothy Perkins; Navy Dot Dress: Dorothy Perkins; Umbrella: Dorothy Perkins.
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. ~ Coco Chanel.
I know, it’s been about four months since I last posted here. A lot of things have been happening – I turned 25 on December 2nd, had a fairly good family Christmas and watched The Da Vinci Code with my man-friend whilst eating chinese food on New Years Eve. Not that I haven’t seen the film before, just that we felt like watching it at the time! BBC was disappointing to say the least, when they just showed 15 minutes of the celebrations on the South Bank. Bah Humbug.
During this time, lots has happened in the style world – leather jackets, zips, studs, floral dresses, shoe boots, leggings galore and an explosion of 80’s style. It seems that the noughties were the decade for re-inventing the best of the past decades. Although I have to say that I’m not going anywhere near this supposed ’90’s’ style that might be popping up this year. It’s the worst possible decade, apart from grunge and alternativ
e style, to actually ressurrect.
One thing I have actually found myself warming to was the mix of leather jackets and floral dresses that seems to be here to stay for the moment. I bought a lovely fake leather jacket from New Look in September, and have been wearing it all the way through.
The floral thing is very recent – I bought a lovely dress that I fell in love with after seeing my sister wearing it. She wasn’t pleased that I copied her, but I’ve given her priority – she can wear hers whenever she wants! I’ve been fairly frugal in relation to buying clothes in the past few months, not like I was in the summer.
I’ve bought three floral dresses over the past few months. The first one was from Topshop – I boug
ht the size 16 because it’s a stretchy silky material with a circular skirt and empire waist so it fits me okay, and it isn’t tight or anything. Sometimes I find I can wear a size 16 from Topshop or River Island, even if they are sometimes a bit mean with their fits.
The second dress is more like a tunic (from New Look) because it’s too short for me to wear with leggings or tights, so I wear it with jeans. It’s very ditsy floral – not something I would usually wear! I’ve always had a slight aversion to florals that look too girly because I like to toughen things up. The florals around at the moment aren’t too girly if you want to wear them with a black cardigan or jeans – they’re more whimsical and antique than ‘girly’.
The third dress (from Dorothy Perkins) I’ve had my eye on for a while because, wait for it, it combines both florals and polka dots! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, and defin
itely had to indulge myself. I think my obsession with polka dots is becoming a bit unhealthy – I have four pairs of shoes with different sorts of polka dots, a polka dot scarf, four pairs of polka dot pyjama bottoms and three polka dot dresses. I guess they remind me of an indefinable time that has become blurred in my head with Audrey Hepburn, 60’s, 80’s and retro dresses with huge underskirts.
I go through phases of liking different sorts of prints, although in recent years I have stuck with butterflies and polka dots. When I was a teenager, I went through a phase of wearing t-shirts and vests with chinese calligraphy symbols on them, even though I had no idea what they meant and if I was swearing at anybody! I like interesting motifs on t-shirts – if they look sort of rock or whimsical.
This birthday and Christmas I received a variety of perfumes from family. I bought myself Narciso Rodriguez’s For Her Eau De Toilette from my Gran, and I have to say it’s everything I thought it would be. It dries down to a sort of warm musk-flower scent, not overpowering but it lingers on clothes and has brilliant staying power. I also bought Matthew Williamson’s fragrance from Gran for Christmas too. It’s slightly more heady than I thought it would be but it’s a very distinctive musky flowery smell.
I prefer musky and warm sweet fragrances, like Angel, although I’ve started to like some flowery perfumes too. My sister bought me Paul Smith’s Floral for Christmas, and it’s absolutely lovely. It’s still here on my pulse points after applying it about six hours ago. I also bought YSL’s Young Sexy Lovely as a birthday treat – it’s a fruity floral, rather nice and refreshing. Never fear – they weren’t expensive because I bought them from Cheapsmells – they have amazing discounts and I wouldn’t be able to afford anything otherwise!
I think popping over to Dorothy Perkins, if you like the whole floral thing (and have a bit of money to spend..), is definitely worthwhile. If I had more money, I would probably buy another dress or two but I definitely can’t afford it! There is a lovely grey dress with pink flowers that I think looks quite vintage, and they also have some ditsy prints going on too. They’ve spotlighted stripes and bows at the moment, which looks a little like Audrey Hepburn’s style…
It’s been ages again since I last blogged here – not that I haven’t been thinking about stuff to talk about! Lately, I’ve been wearing a lot of red and black – it’s a classic colour combination that just seems to work. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a print or just two block colours or red and black accents. It still ends up looking really cool. The same goes if you throw some white into the combination too – Red, Black and White.
I didn’t used to like red. In fact, it’s only in the past year or so that I’ve come to like it – both as a colour in clothing and a lipstick or nailpolish colour. It’s seems polished and classic, depending on how you want to wear it. I tend not to like patent or shiny red – my preference is more for matte, maybe with a bit of sparkle if it’s lipstick or nailpolish. It’s amazing how you can find different shades of the same colour – I have about three or four different shades of lipstick and gloss, all red.
I have a favourite lipstick by Bourjois, it’s a matte muted red, rather than bright, screaming red. Then there’s Urban Decay’s ‘Gash’ lipstick – I’ve bought it recently and have only worn it a few times so far. It’s more of a bright shade, blood red and slightly pinky. My favourite red lipgloss is Benefit’s The Gloss in Rave Reviews, which can be slathered on for the full effect or dabbed on for a subtle red sheen.
I bought a lovely red summer dress a few months ago from New Look, in red with small white bird silhouettes all over it. I’ve worn it quite a lot and feel surprisingly comfortable in it. The more I wear bright colours, the more confident I feel to try different things. Even if you feel that red is a scary colour, it can always be calmed down with a black cardigan or jacket, with black accessories. I also have a dress from last year from Simply Be – its a red dress with long sleeves and a white and black poppy print. It looks sort of ‘Cabaret’ – and has five fabric covered buttons down the front that make it look sort of ‘vintage’.
I’ve never thought of black as being boring or ’safe’. I think because when I was performing at Chickenshed (way back when…), some of our costumes for Cabarets were black, and I always thought it was polished and sophisticated to wear black. For some reason, I really like black on men too – it looks polished and effortlessly cool. Black can be a great canvas to show off some accessories – if you’re wearing head to toe black, you can break it up with a colourful belt, bag, earrings and necklace. Or brightly coloured tights or shoes. I also think purple and pink look great with black, particularly if the pink is bright pink, rather than pale pink (although that looks good too, I just don’t have a fondness for pastel pink).
Also – a tip I’m sure gets bandied around a lot is that red lipstick with a blue undertone makes teeth look whiter, whilst pinky/orange shades of red sometimes make teeth look yellower. I’ve never been sure how you can tell if a shade of red has blue or pink/orange undertones but you can always ask a shop assistant or check the web for reviews and suggestions before you buy! Bourjois are always great for red lipsticks, and Urban Decay’s recent new lipsticks have about three or four different reds.
As for red dresses, there’s a red ponte dress at Evan’s at the moment – it looks lovely but it’s £50 – a bit much for me at the moment without any discounts! I was coveting it a while ago though…
I feel that almost every person, no matter whether they avoid fashion like the plague or are the definitive fashion victim, has an icon or two. Even if they won’t 
admit it or haven’t really thought about it. We all have moments when we sort of go ‘ooh…they look cool’ or ‘I wish I could pull that off..’ when we see people on TV or in music videos or in films. Sometimes it isn’t really the person we admire, but the outfit. I do find that what makes an outfit is that it doesn’t wear the person – the person actually suits and wears that outfit. Maybe that’s why women feel they need style advice – because they need to build up their confidence and feel they know what will look interesting or stylish on them.
As I’ve mentioned in the previous posts, I don’t like the whole ‘rules’ thing for body shapes or whatever, because its always good to try different things to see how they work or if they suit you. If you don’t feel comfortable in something, it shows. There’s 
no point trying to squeeze yourself into something that is three sizes too small – believe me, I know from experience that wearing the right size is important. Life is too short to spend it in ill fitting clothes that make you feel rubbish. Experiment – you only get to know what looks good by trial and error.
Anyway, it often feels as if I have many contradictory style icons – at one end, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, at the other end – Madonna and rock icons like Joan Jett and Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s) or Gwen Stefani. Sometimes I like certain outfits they wore, rather than their style all the time. I don’t think just because we like someone’s style means that we want to emulate them – in some case it’s about appreciating and enjoying their style. A lot of the time, for me, it’s about inspiration; if I’m having a dull fashion day, I might look 
to them to provide me with a bit of inspiration. Not necessarily to look like them, but it’s like a painting or photo can inspire you to write something. Inspiration isn’t copying; it’s using that flash of something exciting to create something that comes from you.
Sometimes certain styles and icons capture moments in time with their style. Fashion and style is illusion – we cover our bodies with signs and meanings that other people around us need to interpret. If we dress in a music influenced way – indie style or goth/emo style, it is up to the people around us to interpret what this means. Sometimes we lack the vocabulary to understand this – like sometimes older people won’t get that gothic style isn’t an indication of ‘devil 
worship’ or anything, it’s an indication of music preference. My love of black eyeliner and black jewellery doesn’t mean I’m trying to cause ‘offence’ or anything – but people will take offence at the weirdest things.
I do feel that fashion and style can be a reaction to something – to protest, to be rebellious. This is what rock, indie and gothic style do so well – they are not ‘prim and proper’ but messy, uncontrolled. Yet you could argue that instead of being rebellious, the more people adopting a style, the more diluted this reactionary message becomes.
It’s like the whole tattoos and piercings thing – lots of people across age groups and classes have piercings and tattoos now. I suppose it’s more about how ’socially acceptable’ something is and pushing at those boundaries. People expect to see pierced ears, and maybe a small nose stud; but they don’t expect to see eyebrow rings, nose rings and tongue piercings. I guess that’s what makes something more meaningfully rebellious?
It’s only been a few hours since I last posted, but I’ve already been struck by the ‘ohmigod, that’s beautiful…but I can’t really afford it…can I?’ bug a few times. Thanks to subscribing to online newsletters, I get bombed with beautiful clothes in my inbox on most days. I’ve found that despite my feeling that I went off t-shirts with logos or pictures on them when I went through my oversized t-shirt and baggy trousers phase when I was 11 or 12 – I still rather like t-shirts with funky designs on them. They tend to be less baggy nowadays though!
Last year, I bought this gorgeous unicorn t-shirt from Urban Outfitters and really love it but it’s a bit on the clingy side. I think it’s okay to buy clothes that don’t fit if you think you can adjust them or add material to them. The t-shirt is great but I think it might need some material added to it or made into a longer t-shirt as I think it’s a bit too short for me. I don’t have the t-shirt up here in Scotland with me so I’ll have to take a photo of it when I get home.
However, because I’m into all things science fiction and fantasy, this beautiful t-shirt 
from Evans caught my eye today! It would look great with black jeans or even the leather skirt in the post below. I just don’t know if that’s good enough for me to buy it because it’s £27 – and I may have to wait until I next get paid before I can afford to buy it. I’ve definitely got my sartorial eye on it though! I’m worried that since my wardrobe is already full to bursting, I might have to start letting some of my clothes go – car boot sales or charity shops, probably. I know that some of the things I have are probably very outdated and I hardly wear them so it’s a waste of space and maybe someone out there can do something to them to make them more interesting!
It looks as though everyone is going 80’s crazy this year – I also saw a t-shirt at Dorothy Perkins that I really like but have no idea whether it would suit me or if it’s just too 80s. The whole ‘neon’ thing and the shape are definitely a reference to the 80s and the style seems sort of like it would look even more 80s paired with fingerless leather gloves! Speaking of fingerless leather gloves, apparently they are making a 
‘comeback’ but I can’t see myself wearing them. I was a baby and a toddler during the 80s so definitely missed out on the craziness. I look back at the Madonna style and think it’s kind of cool though – the wild hair, the black lace gloves, the mix of leather, lace and chains. It looks like a mix between punk/gothic.
Maybe I am a bit of an 80’s girl at heart – I tend to try and blur out the 90’s in terms of my personal style because it was bad. And I do mean bad – I look back and cringe! I guess when you’re growing up, there are always style issues and you’re not sure what to wear or who to look at as a role model. I didn’t come into my own style until the last year of my A-Levels and going off to University. I shopped mostly at topshop and dorothy perkins, with a dash of ’street’ – Paul Frank, Goldigga, etc. It took me even longer to end up where I am now – confident of my choices and how to wear things. Teenagers now definitely have more sense of style – a lot of them are influenced by the kind of music they listen to, pretty much the same as it’s always been.
The 90’s were pretty rubbish for me, music wise – either manufactured pop groups or britpop (don’t get me wrong, I do like britpop but didn’t follow it much back then…) or grunge stuff. I’ve only finally been able to appreciate grunge and britpop in the last few years – so yeah, my music choice wasn’t very cool in the 90s! Michael Jackson, however, has always been present in my music choices – from age 7 to age 24, now. And copying his style would have been a bit of a weird thing to do! I’m more influenced now by the music I like and a certain feeling of ‘rebellion’, that I think by-passed me when I was a teen…
It looks like t-shirts are becoming more artistic and less ‘logo’ now. I never liked the whole ’slogan’ thing on t-shirts, thankfully. Then again, I kind of like animal pictures 
on t-shirts, whoops. Having said that, they tend to be more funky designs rather than the big oversized t-shirts with fantasy type images of wolves or whatever! A bit like this t-shirt from dorothy perkins (which is sold out now) – it’s more subtle and doesn’t look like it’s been sold at a tourist shop! I also have a green t-shirt with a panda on it from dorothy perkins – it’s really cute but still looks like a drawing or etching rather than a photo or computer image. It probably also depends what animal you have on the t-shirt – I would draw the line at kittens or puppies (no matter how cute they are, they look a bit naff on t-shirts)!!
I also like t-shirts with references to the great outdoors, like trees or forests. I do have a t-shirt from Evans with a tree/branch motif on it – its a recent purchase so I’ve only worn it a couple of times with cutoff 
jeans and birkenstocks (sounds kind of hippy/surf-dudette, eh?). The weather has been rubbish here in Scotland in the past two weeks so I haven’t been wearing my cutoff jeans or t-shirts – therefore I have a fading tan that I got from my last two weeks in London! Oh well…
It’s been ages since I posted on this blog – and not from lack of shopping, oh no! I’ve been up North in Scotland (where I still am, at least until the beginning of Sept), doing my writing course and generally having a rethink about my life. I promised myself I wouldn’t go shopping, but unfortunately I’ve been too enthused and excited about all the funky fashion ideas and looks on my fellow fatshionista’s blogs. Also, there are far too many sales and far too much temptation…
I’ve found myself in a bit of uncharted territory because I found this beautiful leather pencil skirt in the dorothy perkins online sale. I didn’t know what to wear it 
with but started thinking about different textures and raw materials. A bit of online browsing later and I also decided to buy a purple silk top to go with it. I think the further you go with clothes, the more confident you are to wear things that you might not have thought would look good.
Fashion is about experimentation and having fun. I think the whole ‘fat women can’t wear….[stripes/prints/figure hugging things]‘ is boring and doesn’t inspire creativity at all. I’m not happy with people dictating what you can and can’t wear.
They get paid to tell us that big ladies have to wear black, that we can’t wear 
anything that would draw attention to us, because our bodies are “too big”. I don’t really care for this at all – I love bright colours, bold prints, stripes, dresses. Anyway – the point being that this pencil skirt was just too good to be true and I had to have it. It’s waiting for me in London, with the purple silk top (did I mention that purple is my favourite colour?).
I also took advantage of the Evans 20% off sale a couple of weeks ago and bought this great leopard print ponte dress. It’s different to how I expected it to be – it has smaller print than I thought it had in the first place but it still looks good when you 
wear it with black leggings or black tights and a black or grey cardigan. I thought about adding a splash of colour but wasn’t sure whether it would work or not, so I’ll have to try that one out! The shape of the dress is more fitted than I would usually go for but again – never be stifled by the so-called ‘rules’! It goes past the knees so is a comfortable length – I’m not exactly comfortable with short or above the knee styles. I’m not sure why that is – it could just be because I worry about constantly checking if my underwear is showing, eek! Anyway, it’s still being sold at Evans if you want to take a look, although it’s more expensive without the 20% off…also, sorry about the quality of the image, I’ll have to take my own close up photos of the material and print at some point!
I’ve also added MAC to my favourite make up brands, mostly because of their lipsticks and eye shadows. I bought a true pastel pink lipstick from the website a 
few weeks ago called Saint Germain (err..a reference to Paris, I think) - I have yet to give it a trial run as I’m not sure what style to wear with it or what eye colours (I think blue looks a bit bizarre with pastel pink so I could try black eyeliner or purple eye make up…).
I also use their ‘Shroom’ eyeshadow as a base and mixer for darker eye colours – it really tones things down well. By the way, I’m fair skinned, so I’m not sure how it would look on darker skin tones! It would probably go well with darker skin tones on it’s own as it’s a very light sort of beige with slight sparkles. It is an expensive brand though, so I’m sure there are similar colours in cheaper brands. I think I tend to spend more on cosmetics than I do on clothes…although sometimes that’s debateable, whoops.
I’m definitely going to tone down the spending for the coming months as I need to save my pennies and sort out my finances. A job search is also on the cards. Its all so confusing because we live in a culture that bombards us with things to buy that we convince ourselves we need (or really really want, anyway..), yet we’re living in a recession where we can’t really afford to buy all these things. That is where the debt comes from – capitalism. Is the government really so surprised that our national debt is so heavy when advertising is everywhere?
I did say a few months ago that I would post stuff to do with makeup and maybe pictures of my day to day outfits so I’ll have to start sorting that out. I did find a really good tutorial on how to apply cat eyes liner with liquid eyeliner that I wanted to share with you – the link is here. I’ve been trying the method out and it works really well, no matter how big you want the flick to be. So hopefully the next month or so I’ll be sorting this blog out, adding fashion inspiration and posting my favourite outfits and things…
The weather has been very changeable recently in London – one day it’s sunny and hot and then it’s thunderstorms and pouring with rain. Another thing is that it’s been kind of humid but then today it was sort of cooler. This is making it a bit of a dilemma deciding what to wear, or whether to wear a thicker cardigan or a pashmina.
Generally I tend to tote around my favourite everyday bag which could probably pass as a kind of overnight bag because its an oversized bag which tends to act as a ‘take my room out with me’ kind of thing – so it has room for a cardigan or pashmina if the weather gets colder. Another dilemma is whether to wear flat ballerinas or my trusty birkenstocks – if it rains birkenstocks don’t exactly hold up very well, with the footbed tending to get soaked and feel suspiciously squelchy (the same could be said of canvas flats, but at least they mostly keep your feet dry).
Anyway, I’ve bought three new dresses recently – I don’t know what has come over me but I seem to be drawn to flowery frocks with suspiciously bright colours that smack of summer (despite the rain tap being turned on and off). I’m wearing one of them now, from Evans – it’s slightly more fitted than I expected but it fits in all the right places and is very cool and comfortable. What isn’t clear in the picture is that the two pleats at the sides are in fact pockets, but it works well if you get the right size – they don’t gape or anything.
It can also be dressed up and down – a day to night dress. The cotton is very lightweight and slightly see through so I feel more comfortable wearing black leggings underneath. Purple or green leggings could also be worn if you toned it down with a black or darker cardigan, but that’s just me – I sometimes tend to the conservative side of colours! I was apprehensive about the yellow when I first received it, but it all seems to work with clever accessorizing and a bit of confidence. I never thought I would wear a dress with bright flowers on it – this shows what sort of happy go lucky mindset I get into when summer peeks it’s head around the corner. I also absolutely love different shades of purple and green, as well as black, which is probably what attracted me to this particular dress! Sometimes Evans really gets it right with certain things, sometimes it doesn’t. Over the years, I’ve tended to view Evans as being quite conservative, but it looks as though there is a new verve and lease of life being breathed into the store.
I also bought a dress from Dorothy Perkins - cream with a ‘hitchy’ hem, because they were doing 20% off. It turns out they are now doing 50% off – so if you are sizes 18-22, as well as 6-16 (UK) they have some fabulous dresses at the moment.
Perhaps I was just having a rather feminine moment! It accessorizes well with blues and browns – I wore a blue cardigan and my blue jean cutoffs to add a bit more of an edge. I was worried about the fact that it was cream and I don’t have a lot of cream or white in my wardrobe. I think I was relying on the accent colours of blue and coral/light orange to provide the colour for the accessories and shoes etc. It is also longer than I thought it would be – just sitting at the knee or just below the knee. I’m quite short though – 5 feet 3, so it probably depends how tall you are. I’m hoping that the dresses I’ve got will last a few years – it all depends upon styling and accessories if you want things to last. I’m impressed with the quality of the stuff Dorothy Perkins and Evans have made in the past two years as they really hold up well. I’m still wearing things and mixing them up from four or five years ago from them. You know what they say though – fashion goes through cycles!
Last but not least, I bought a dress from Joe Browns Plus on Simply Be that hasn’t arrived yet. Joe Browns has been a bit hit or miss for me in general, but most of the clothes I’ve bought from them have worked really well. They are really good for feelgood laid back style, with a slight edge.
I also love the dresses and tunics on their non plus size website, where sizes go up to 18, but am wary of buying from there when I don’t know what the fit will be like. I like their philosophy, anyway! They seem to be all about bohemian and surf fashion with a rock sort of edge. Or maybe that’s just me…
Again, I can’t be sure what the material and print of the dress is like until it arrives, but I was attracted to the different colours and possibilities of different accessorizing with these colours. I could pick out the red with a red cardigan, or wear the dress with black leggings and a black cardigan, or play up the blue. I’m a little worried about the low neckline because I’m not ample in the cleavage department and might need to wear a vest underneath!
I’m quite happy with my choices, I don’t generally find dresses that tick all the boxes with me (comfortable, not too fussy, easy to accessorise, reasonably priced). The only problem is that it’s so tempting at the moment – the sales seem to be picking up and it would be so easy to go mad and bag a bargain. I’m trying to save my pennies this summer, and work with what I’ve got rather than impulse buying. So you might see some accessorising, make up and styling focused posts rather than ‘what I’ve bought’ focused posts in the next few months!
I am however, really interested in the Beth Ditto for Evans range…some of the pieces are really strong and appeal to me. However, I will only buy if I feel that I’ll wear something again and again – some of the pieces are a little pricey. We’ll see! 
