Penney’s v’s Christian Louboutin: The Bandage Boot.

Left, Christian Louboutin, right Penney’s (Primark).

I forgot to mention yesterday, what with all the talk of new hair, I got new boots too. I fell in love with the Christian Louboutin Nitoinimoi Bandage boots when I saw them, (especially the blue suede ones with black leather straps). It seems that Penney’s (Primark) have come to my rescue. They have cheekily done their own version, not in leather and suede for over €1000, but in (ahem) faux suede and elastic for €21. Ah, I’d be mad no to for that price, they’ll hopefully last the season, though stupidly I got the grey ones. They also come in black which would have been a more sensible choice but pah! I like ‘em and I don’t get why people get so uppity about high street ‘versions’. Who are people kidding when they say it puts designers out of business? If I could even remotely afford the Christian Louboutin originals I’m afraid it would be adios Penney’s and I’d wager that would be the attitude of most women. (wow, what a well rounded argument Whisty). Happy pre-christmas bargain hunting peeps!

More Purple Deliciousness.

Purple is my colour of the moment. It was all over the AW09 fashion shows and I went a bit of a mission looking for some purple pieces earlier in the week. I came across this purple floral number in AWear. I actually think it has about 3 shades of purple in total and I love that it is in-between the tulip and lantern shapes. At 20 yoyo’s it’s also a bit if a bargain.

After my last 2 what I wear posts being pretty and feminine and this skirt reflecting the same style I decided to create a look that was a bit more edgy. I wore it with these Henry Holland Mock-Stockings, some driving gloves and a high-neck short-sleeved jumper.

(Yeah them boots again, you’d think I only had one pair of footwear…) Next post they will be no-where to be seen.  More pics here at Her Apparel.

Plum Stuff. AW09 Colour Trend

Since seeing the D&G AW09 collection earlier in the year, the colour purple has been playing on my mind. Rich jewel colours are in practically every shop on the high street in some form or another; from ruby reds to deep navy blue and emerald greens. But is the rich purples that are screaming festive season at me. I have a DIT graduation to go to on Saturday and a winter wedding the week before Christmas, I was determined to pick up a purple dress to wear to both. Imagine my utter delight then, when in the window of River Island I saw this divoon dress. (pic doesn’t do it too much justice)

I dashed inside, fingers crossed that the dress wouldn’t be as expensive as I had a sinking feeling it would be. My hopes were dashed, it was €84, I was bit gutted really, I had found a dress that matched exactly what I was looking for. I mean even the shapes are similar to the D&G one, and check out the curtain tie-back belt. Anyway, I guess the sales assistant saw my down-trodden mush and told me that there was another dress nearly the exact same for €30 and did I want to see it? Let me hear a hell yeah.

Apparently, she told me, River Island do this thing call a “Star Buy” where a particular item of clothing is reduced down (in this case by about €47) for a short period of time. So providing that they had my size, lady luck was at least looking in my direction. The cheapo version was only very slightly different from is pricey sister; no spider brooch, no tie-back belt (yay) and no frilly neckline. I grabbed my size and I now have a super duper dress for graduation on sat and chilly nuptials in December! I tried it on with a vintage hat and some leopard print tights.

I’ll wear shoes at the wedding, not my old faithfuls! I also attached a tiny gold leopard brooch to a faux fur stole to give the look a bit more vintage glam. More pics here on Her Apparel.

D&G runway images courtesy of Style.com

Stellar Mag Pics

A few weeks ago I posted about a shoot me and some other fashion bloggers had the privilege to take part in, for Stellar mag. The issue came out last week and here are the final pics!

Don’t mess with my Tutu

I went to Dundrum on Tuesday and attacked A|wear with fervour previously unseen on a damp Tuesday in D16. The whole place was full of screaming children and harassed mums (and nannies obv.), the last thing these ladies were able to do was shop for new clothes. So I had all the choice and all the changing room space I needed to try on as much as possible. Trés bien!

I’ve never understand why women go shopping in twos; When I say shopping I mean the ‘sport’ of shopping. The trawling of shops for amazing pieces and utter bargains without a clue what you want, especially when you don’t even need anything in the first place. Plus, in my case anyway, I always take as many pieces as possible into the changing room. Most of the time I have to give the changing-room assistant 6 pieces and bring 6 more in with me. Then spend the whole time running in and out of the changing room in my socks at intervals to swap pieces with her that I want to try. It’s incredibly annoying, and is it really anything to do with thievery? I mean most stores have the little plastic alarm tags on them. It must just be because they don’t want half the stock in the changing rooms rather than out on the shop floor.

Anyway I digress, I always shop alone, I never know what it is I’m going to buy and the thought of dragging someone along from shop to shop while I decide is just awful. I understand the fun of group shopping for a special occasion; like why a bride-to-be would want someone there to help her choose her dress, or going out in a gang to pick a Debs dress but shopping is a solitary pastime for me. Like reading. There are just too many things in too many shops waiting for me to find them and I don’t want to miss out on something just because the person I’m shopping with wants to have a coffee break. Plus it’s always an hour before the shops close and the opportunity to buy an amazing pair of shoes, or a jacket that will suit me forever, is gone for good. Plus I’d sooner grab a glass of vino après shopping surrounded by bags of lovely goodies!

So with myself for company I went off to Dundrum, I hadn’t been there for ages and I love the LUAS journey, so I was looking forward to it. I tried on a few pieces in Penney’s (Primark) from the Limited Collection … oh dear no. It all looked dreadful on me and N.B. the sizes are way off compared to the rest of the stuff in there. If you do decide to try some of it on, grab some bigger sizes when you do. I went to H&M, but all I kept thinking about was the amount of cash I was hoping to spend in there tomorrow on Jimmy Choos so that was a complete distraction. I skipped River Island and Harvey Nics; had a look through Urban Outfitters but as I said it was in A|wear that I spent my dough. I bought two skirts, a lace dress and a huge black-stone cocktail ring. I fell instantly in love with this mink-coloured tiered net skirt with satin waistband. It kind of reminds me of a mini version of the dress that Carrie wore in SATC and American Girl in Paris.

This version is way more wearable though, I teamed it with a lamé top Dorothy Perkins, a multi-chain necklace, Penney’s / Primark and tied up one side of the skirt with a Grosgrain ribbon. More pics here on Her Apparel.

October Round Up

This post is going to be a bit of a round up on all October goings-on that I have yet to blog about, my birthday is on Halloween so I have been a little busy over the last couple of days as you can imagine. A post to serve as a nod to all things missed.

Firstly, this time last week, I had just returned from celebrating the fact that a very good friend of mine had completed the Dublin marathon; his first ever. He completed it in 3hrs 50mins which I thought was amazing and he thought was a bit disappointing really. Anyway, the weather was just incredible on the day; before I left I pulled on my faux-fur gillet, a hoodie and some walking boots to walk up to the route. It was an absolute pleasure heading out at 10:45 to watch him going past and cheer him on. (More pics here)

I also wore a woolly hat that I bought when I was in Quicksilver the week before. I can’t actually remember the last time I wore a ‘bobble’ hat. I think I must have been about 6 and probably had mittens tied together with string through the arms of my coat as well. To tell you the truth I am in love with the hat, it is so comfy and warm, in the last 8 days I have worn nearly every day.

Secondly, I grabbed a bus into town after my friend had passed the 16 mile stage to catch him at the finish line. The city centre was alive with runners, supporters and people just passing by watching the marathon so the atmosphere was fantastic. There were not only supporters everywhere but also fallen leaves, I took a few snaps.

Lastly, the boots I bought from Schuh, that I have been wearing non-stop for the last two months very nearly broke my heart. They have two buckles on each foot that fasten two leather straps around and over the laces. I was in a bit of a rush last Thursday and dashed out of the house without properly fastening the top straps. Needless to say, I lost one. I was pretty upset, as I said I wear them all the time, but I had a cunning plan which would serve to appease my upset. I took off the remaining strap from the other boot and replaced both straps with belts. I love them!

Behind the Scenes on a Magazine Fashion Photoshoot

… or how the magic comes to life…

Looking over my shoulder (very) early on Saturday morning, I wandered along a less than salubrious lane on Dublin’s Northside looking for a photographer’s studio. As I turned a corner I spied a stylish bunch of ladies, wearing some fab outfits and knew I had found the right place. Said, stylish ladies were fellow fashion bloggers and I joined them in hanging around the on the cobbles, before going in for a photoshoot. The fashion shoot was to showcase the rising trend in Ireland (pun not intended) of bloggers posting ‘What I Wear’ posts. 8 style bloggers all in our favourite outfits, were to be shot by Lily Forberg for Stellar magazine.

I had read and commented on most of the blogs that were represented but hadn’t met any of the creators themselves. I was therefore, incredibly excited to meet the women behind some of the most impressive style blogs in the country. It was an honour to be photographed along with bloggers, Arsheen Qasim of FashionFilosophy and Blanaid Hennessy of Blanaid.com. These ladies have such amazing, individual style that I commented on what both ladies were wearing for Grazia Stylehunter last month. It was fabulous to meet the writers of some new and exciting blogs like, Leonn from cosmo-sparkle and Jess from GetYourFrocks. Meeting Laura Cunningham one half of the bloomin hilarious StyleBitches, Cathy from ThisIsAnOffshoot and Zohra of OpheliaFord was also incredibly impressive. These three ladies have all been blogging longer than I have and all their blogs are completely individual and original; it was great to meet them all.

So we chatted and complimented each other’s hard work (yes it was a bit of a love-in really) while we all decided what to wear and how we wanted our hair and make up done. After an hour or so all butterflies and nerves had been suppressed as we realised we were in such fabulous company and most importantly, none of us were going to be photographed wearing the same outfit. I mean, can you imagine… The horror.

Bloggers chatting, studying, reading, researching etc…

Our Wardrobe, well a tiny portion of it anyway!

“Think smokey and double it please”…

The bigger the better… oh and I have this crows wing I’d like you to stick in there somewhere if you could… Me getting my barnet fixed by the fabulous, Mr.Maurice Flynn. (photo credit Arsheen Qasim)

My moment to shine, which I made sure I did in sequins and pleather! The amazing Lily Forberg working her magic.

Line ‘em up and shoot ‘em. I love how different we all look!

Pretty maids all in a row… here we are with the utterly brilliant Corina Gaffey and Lily Forberg. To which we owe the whole experience. L-R: Blanaid Hennessy of Blanaid.ie, Zohra of Ophelia Ford, Corina, Jess of GetYourFrocks, Lily, Moi, Cathy of ThisIsAnOffshoot, Arsheen Qasim of FashionFilosophy, Leonn of CosmoSparkle and Laura Cunningham of StyleBitches.

I’m certain I can safely say that we were all really excited and incredibly grateful to the Queen Bee of Fashion Editors in Dublin Miss Corina Gaffey of Stellar magazine for asking us all to be part of the shoot. I would also like to thank Ciúin Tracey for working absolute wonders in taking the majority of these snaps with my ancient and past-it 5MP digital camera!

See here, for the run-down on Her Apparel

Tell me About it… Studs

Bags that is, bags with studs. Alexander Wang bags with studs would be more specific…

I can dream can’t I? I can dream and buy one of these instead. Left, leather conical stud bag, £70 Asos. Right, All over stud bag, £28 Miss Selfridge.

More on Autumn… or “I love your name and your numeral”

I’ve been wanting to write this post since I started blogging about the joys of autumn, but it’s generally been too nice a day to do so. My feelings were mixed therefore this morning, when I pulled back the drapes (they’re 10ft, so I guess that means they’re drapes?) to see the rain battered window panes behind them. I thought that there was no point posting about fabulous autumnal days when, instead of sitting inside reading / writing, we could spend time outside kicking leaves about. I have been doing a bit of leaf-kicking in the grounds of Trinity myself! But a rainy day meant that I could finally indulge myself in this post.

It is the glorious autumn sunshine, the kind we’ve had a fair amount of this month that inspires me and makes me want to write. It also makes me want to watch movies set in Massachusetts, more specifically, Cambridge, MA. It is the part of Boston that is home to both MIT and Harvard and is one of the most popular parts of the US to film seasons and seasonal changes. The 1970 film, Love Story is a perfect example of the portrayal of seasonal Massachusetts. It’s based at Harvard University and before you groan and grumble that this is a fashion blog and ask what this post has to do with fashion, hang on.

Love Story is amazing for late 60’s autumn fashion; if you’ve seen it then you’ll know that it stars Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neill. (Ali MacGraw was once part of the hottest couple of their time, the rather handsome Steve McQueen, being the other). It is Ali MacGraw’s character, Jennifer Cavalleri’s wardrobe that I refer to when I talk about the perfect autumnal fashion in Love Story. From the beginning of the movie, through to the winter scenes her wardrobe is fantastic; I have posted images of the character below, interspersed with a few pics of Boston and our very own TCD, in the ‘Fall’.

To get the Jennifer Cavalleri look, think Camel coats, with the collar turned up at the back; accessorised with knee-high, fur-lined boots, a faux-fur Russian-style hat or a woollen hat and scarf in University colours. Underneath that, think colour-block dresses, simple skirts belted at the waist and red or black opaque tights. Finish off the look with some on-trend over-sized glasses, et voila.

Fall Boston by Mark Grayden

Images from, Love Story, Facebook, TCD.ie, Boston Press, Corbis and Mark Grayden

All that glitters. How to wear… a Sequin Jacket.

I don’t about y’all but I’m delighted that the ‘all things must be sequinned‘ mantra has lasted through spring / summer and into AW09. It is such a feminine look and because sequins have been applied to everything from ballet pumps to winter scarves they suit everyone. My recent post about wearing sequinned cardigans has made me want to wear them and everything else sequinned all the time. Alas I am yet to save for the Karen Millen sequinned cardi, I therefore will have to wear the sequinned jacket I bought at the secret boutique sale last week instead. Oh it’s a hard life!

I chose this sartorial beauty because, well, 1. it was reduced from €460 t0 €80, 2. it’s navy blue instead of the usual black, and 3. it fits me really well and has on-trend 3/4 sleeves. I wore it out yesterday evening to go for dinner and afterwards, to the cinema to watch Scarface. I couldn’t sit through nearly 3 hours looking at the amazing wardrobe of Michelle Pfeiffer without indulging in a few sequins myself! I teamed the jacket with distressed jeans, a plain white tee, some fierce heels and smokey eyes. I love the fact that it is dressy and laid-back at the same time, I felt just as comfortable in the restaurant as I did watching the movie, (hair up at the movie, down for the meal). I also like that it gives just a little nod to Balmain SS09; sequins, studs and ripped jeans.

More pics here.