YOU GUYS, I AM TOO EXCITED TO EVEN DO ANY PREAMBLE FOR THIS POST BECAUSE LOOK, LOOK AT THIS INSANE PLAID DRESS AND PERFECT GREEN CAPE I’M FEATURING TODAY! YEAH, EXACTLY, IT’S AMAZING, SO LET’S JUST GET RIGHT TO IT BECAUSE I CAN’T WAIT!
We all know the quote from the movie The Devil Wears Prada; ‘Florals, for spring? Groundbreaking.’ Floral prints in spring and summer may not be innovative, but it does feel nice to sport something reflective of the season you’re enjoying. It would be expected, therefore, that florals are off-limits for autumn and winter, when most leaves even give up the ghost, let alone flowers. It’s definitely possible for a good winter floral to exist; special attention needs to be paid to colour schemes and flower types to create a print that doesn’t feel out of place in colder weather and dimmer lighting. As someone with no experience in fabric and clothing design, I imagine that’s hard to do. If so, congratulations are due to Hell Bunny, because this Blue Bell dress is a winter floral gem.
There are parts of autumn and winter fashion that just scream ‘chic’ in a way that can’t be denied. Houndstooth print, faux fur accents, moody autumnal colour palettes, capes! This season Voodoo Vixen are ready to serve up delicious examples of each one of those features, and boy, oh, boy, am I excited about it.
It’s one of my favourite times of the year. The nights are slowly beginning to draw in, making snuggling down on the sofa under a blanket one of the better ways to spend an evening, and making hot chocolate seasonally relevant again. Coats and scarves are unpacked from their summer hiding spots at the back of wardrobes or from suitcases in attics. And, my favourite of all, the leaves are changing colours, painting the world with rich reds, burnt oranges, flashes of yellow-gold, an occasional special plum. Along with it rain dampens the barks of trees to a dark brown, and excited Halloween lovers begin to string up all their red, black and ghostly decorations. And along side it all, Malco Modes’s wide selection of fluffy petticoats in all manner of styles and colours allows me to mimic those fall shades with matching autumnal tones.
One of the easiest things for a woman to wear is a wrap dress. The great thing about them is that they’re so well-loved and respected that they’ve never gone out of style, so it’s typically possible to find them on the high street and at your nearest mall as well as online. For me, they weren’t something I appreciated until I began to dress in vintage styles. Ironically, though, one of the things I love most about them is that unlike many of the swing dresses hanging in my wardrobe, I don’t feel like I have to style them up in a vintage fashion to wear them.
On days when I don’t have the motivation to get pinned up, when I need to get out of the house quickly, or when it wouldn’t be fully appropriate where I’m going to turn up in a 50s swing dress and floofy petticoat a-swingin’, a wrap dress is easy to throw on, comfortable to wear, and always makes me feel put together even when the effort sunk into that ‘putting together’ was minimal. They’re chic, they’re timeless, and thanks to this Lotta wrap dress from Joanie Clothing, they’re also totally sassy.
Lady V London produce a variety of dress styles that have become staples of their brand, re-releasing them in new prints and colours each season. For lovers of a particular dress shape, that means ladies can stock their wardrobe with a piece they know works well for them in lots of different patterns and colours suitable for every occasion. One of Lady V London’s most popular and enduring dress cuts is their Hepburn dress, a classic ‘audrey’ style sleeveless dress with a modest round neckline and a long, full swing skirt. I’m somewhat amazed it’s taken me this long to try out a Hepburn, but I’m not surprised to find it’s as timeless and lovely as I would have predicted.
They say that everyone has a base colour they build their wardrobe around, either black, navy or brown. For me by neutral base has always been black, with a leaning towards navy in summer. Brown, though, has never really interested me, whether in pale near-grey tones or rich chocolate. Until recently. Suddenly, in my ever-expanding love for autumn styling, I’ve begun to wonder whether brown tones suit me, and whether it’s a colour I should be adding in to my wardrobe. So when I saw this Charlotte dress by Lindybop, I knew I had found the contender that could make me try.
It’s been an odd couple months with my plantar fasciitis and piriformis syndrome impeding my ability to shoot outfits as regularly as I usually would, so I thought I’d share with you some of the new things I’ve been trialing or enjoying lately that have become some of my new favourites. From makeup and skincare to footwear and audiobooks, it’s a mixed bag of fun!
It’s September and the weather seems to have settled for long enough that I think we can finally call it; it’s Autumn! And while for many that means getting overexcited about Halloween, something I could not care less about, for me it means joyously waiting for the leaves to start changing colours (my absolutely favourite part of the season,) beginning to layer up, and the chance to dig out all my tartans from the back of my wardrobe. Tartans and plaids are my favourite part of autumn and winter dressing, hands down, so I was thrilled to see Hell Bunny offering us more new tartan lovelies this season. Oh Hell Bunny, I can always count on you to make me happy. Today, it’s with Irvine.
In my attitudinal warming towards leopard print in the last year or so I’ve noticed that most of the spotty little items I’ve acquired have felt largely sassy and not at that casual as far as clothing goes. The 50s styles I prefer, admittedly, are simply more dressy, and I don’t lean into the more relaxed rockabilly styles that do read as more laid-back to the styled eye.
Because of that, it was nice to come across this Hell Bunny Panthera dress, as it’s a gorgeous example of leopard print conducted in a truly casual way. That makes it a perfect piece for ladies who find sporting spots a bit too intimidating and who just want a dress that’s easy to wear which doesn’t require them to sport an attitude to go along with it–although the attitude is optional, should you want to partake in it.
Miss Amy May 