Style Tip: It's the little things that can make a difference: Embellished collars

Collars are big - not in the literal sense but in the fashion sense.  The past few seasons have seen them brought to our attention to the point where it is often the collar on a garment which takes centre stage, rather than the garment itself.

Zara has, for a while now, been adding studs, sequins and other embellishment to the collars on its blouses as shown here on this Zara new season blouse, which costs £39.99


                 


 Zara also has this parrot shirt with diamante on the collar which costs £29.99.  


                             



Adopting a slightly different theme, they have also released this embroidered tulle blouse with pearls around the collar for £32.99 - so pretty.


                                

For a white cotton shirt which is crystal embellished, take a look at Maje at Net-a-Porter

Embellished collars aren't going to appeal to everyone, so as an alternative way to get a similar look but with a little more flexibility, an embellished collar necklace can do a fantastic job. The obvious difference is that they can be worn with a variety of different pieces, from breton style tops, to fine knits, to collar-less shirts and plain t-shirts.

I have already shown you the NW3 beaded collar, which I wore when on holiday. It can be worn at a variety of different lengths, which makes it extra versatile.

 

   

For an alternative, look to Galibardy for a black pearl collar which, at £7.00, is a great way to test the water if you're not sure.

                                   



Dorothy Perkins offers a pastel bead collar for £12.50


                                                           


together with this soft cream bead and pearl collar for £12.00


                                                  
  

For velvet, sequins or fur options, look to Gemma Lister for a fantastic selection of collars, or to Zara for this black and lime mesh bib with gemstones which would be perfect for those who prefer something a little less girlie.

                                  
   

Primark, Next, Oasis, New Look, H&M - you will find them everywhere and from velvet, to sequins, to fur, to heavy embellishment to lace and leather - there will be something for everyone if you are tempted to dip your toe in the water.

Style Guile Smile

I love it when the September issues of the magazines thud onto the door mat because, as you will all know, they contain the trends for next season. 

Fortunately my not inconsiderable stash of new magazines arrived before going away, which meant that I spent a very pleasant few hours in the car perusing, poring, ripping, sorting and studying the pages very closely, before organising my style files for A/W '12. 

I constantly update these files throughout the season, editing and re-organising them as the season progresses.  I use them as a reference point for trends, micro trends, wearable looks, up and coming brands, new designers and so on. It's very easy to identify those trends, and pieces, which are going to be huge - and I will post about them soon.

As ever, there are always a few pieces each season which set my stylist's heart racing and make me smile - hence the title of this post. And this is one of them - the Wooly Paillettes handbag, designed by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton.  It is an oversized structured shape - half doctor's bag, half carpet bag - which is embroidered with purple, terracotta or burgundy sequins.

Of the bags, Marc Jacobs said: "They came from a concept of magic and bewilderment, an idea of surface, texture, sparkle, and shine. This meant that there was a kind of otherwordly quality."

At £2,750 I don't expect one to be making an appearance in my Wardrobe any time soon - but I have absolutely no doubt that it will inspire many high street versions - and I can't wait to find them.

Big enough to be used in the day time, it will add an element of sparkle to any outfit and will go equally well with jeans, a crombie coat and brogues, as well as with a pencil skirt, leather jacket and heels.

Many of my clients love a little bit of sparkle and I can't imagine a better way to kick start your A/W '12 Wardrobe by including a bag of this design in it.  I can guarantee that a bag reflecting this design will still be on trend for many years to come and no matter how much you invest in it, it will be worth every penny.

A round-up of holiday outfits to include Jigaw, Hobbs, Zara, H&M, Gap, Next, Warehouse, Reiss, French Connection, Pied a Terre, Carvela and Sea Folly (plus others)!

Wow! It's so good to be back!

I didn't get any time to blog whilst on holiday and, after returning home, I made a pact with myself that I wouldn't blog until I had finished certain (really interesting) jobs - such as filing, sorting - you know, the usual domestic chores that get left until they reach the stage where they have to be addressed or else everyone disappears under a pile of magazines, rather like something on a poor quality TV show when the front door can't be opened because of piles of old newspapers.  Except in my case they are piles of Grazia, Red and Easy Living magazines, plus endless receipts!

We had a fantastic time away.  We stayed at the Watergate Bay Hotel in Cornwall which I can thoroughly recommend for families. The views of the bay were fantastic, as was the food, the rooms and the relaxed atmosphere. For the first time ever, since since we have had children, we took advantage of the childcare that was on offer and the youngest loved going to "night-time nursery" for a couple of hours.  The hotel thought nothing of people walking around in wet-suits, dripping wet having just left the pool - or anything else really, which was great.

This was the view from the pool - amazing! It was closed to children until 9am which meant a lovely peaceful swim every morning. Other than the day when there were six maintenace men cleaning the pool one morning - and only me swimming in it!

                                           

 

Anyway, having spent more time in the water than at any other point in my life, it left little time for photos, which was probably quite good on the whole as I was wrinkly most of the time with slightly red looking eyes from the saltwater/swimming pool.

We did manage shots of a few outfits, so here they are:

Dinner first night

H&M shirt, Gap trousers, Pied a Terre shoes, Reiss and Coccinelle cuffs, H&M ring (I thought that I blended in quite well with the surroundings!)

 

Lunchtime day 2 - Fifteen Cornwall

Next trousers, Warehouse knit and bag, Carvela shoes, Jigsaw necklace;

            

        
My husband was impressed that I managed to continue my birthday celebrations even a week later! Impressive huh?! This lemon polenta cake was lovely.

                                                  


Body boarding days 1, 2 & 3

Wetsuit (borrowed from a friend as I had leant mine to our daughter) and thermal vest! The waves on the last day were like nothing I've been in before. They were huge! The lifeguards were out with their loudspeakers, on their jet skis and generally doing an amazing job, and it was brilliant.

Dinner day 2

Jigsaw trousers (current and in the sale) NW3 top (sale) plus new season NW3 necklace and pied a terre shoes;

 

This is a closer look at the Hobbs NW3 beaded collar £29 (post to follow shortly on beaded collars, which we are going to see a lot of next season).

 

My first hero piece

French Connection maxi dress which was great for layering over my swimming costume on my way to the pool and then going to breakfast in afterwards.  I also layered a French Connection knit over the top and a studded belt so that I could wear it in the day time, with converse.

And the middle of these three costumes was my second hero piece.  A while ago, I wrote a post about how my swimming costume had seen better days. In fact, it was almost at the point of being indecent. Anyway, amongst others, Seafolly sent me this middle swimming costume below, to try out.

I thought long and hard about how to include it, without looking like an exhibitionist - or an idiot! Anyway, when it came to it, it more than earned its place in my Wardrobe, so it therefore definitely warranted a mention.

I wore it every day to swim before breakfast, again under my wet suit and then again in the pool later on in the day with the children. For once I loved wearing a swimsuit - not in a "hey look at me" kind of way (I still made our son get out of the pool to retrieve the ball with which we were playing) but I felt covered, held in, and respectable - more as if I was wearing clothes rather than underwear - if that makes sense. So, whilst Seafolly are more expensive than some brands, and I would never previously have spent that much on a swimming costume, I think that they are worth the investment and would do so now.

So, in the spirit of seeing what it looks like on a "real" person, here's a shot that we took in the garden before going away. 

What you lose in leg length by having the 1950's cut on the leg, you gain in decency and comfort!

Today I wore some other pieces that I took away, but which I didn't get a chance to wear:

Jigsaw khaki skirt, French Connection pale blue striped knit (same as the navy one above) Topshop blue belt, Warehouse bag, Zara shoes (excuse the bucket - the fish were having their Saturday morning water change!)

Later on in the day I swapped the blue belt for a Topshop leopard print one, and brogues for our walk in the park.

So, that's my round-up of the last week or so.  Keeping to a simple colour scheme really worked for me but being on the go so much, I pretty much stuck to the same few pieces without much time to think about what I was going to wear.

I am now looking foward to our next trip, which is a few days on a narrow boat with some friends. Altough not the narrow boat we had booked, as I have just been informed by our friend that it has sunk. It doesn't bode well! Better get that cozzie back on!

On the Run - Here you can take a peek at the contents of my suitcase for a trip to Cornwall

We're all excited because we are off on on a break down to Cornwall tomorrow to stay in a hotel.  For our trips to Wales, I usually just chuck together whatever I can find (moth eaten items included you will recall) so it's lovely to be able to take some nicer pieces with me.

As always with packing, I sorted everyone else's clothes out first and then dealt with my own.  This is just a snap shot of some of the pieces I have taken, rather than a comprehensive run down - and also to show you the colour scheme I have chosen. As you can see, I have gone for blues/greys/khaki/creams and not much pink for once!

If you are anything like me, you will like to take a peek to see what someone else packs for their time away, so you will be able to get a vague idea from this. But as it's not very comprehensive, I promise to bring you lots of shots when we are away.

Here you can see the obligatory breton knits from French Connection, new Jigsaw trench skirt which I wore yesterday, Lola Rose scarf, denim and chambray shirts, sparkly vests and out of shot chino style trousers and heavier knits.  

As always, I have packed plenty of accessories, again largely keeping to the same colour scheme.

Two pairs of flats and two pairs of heels, again in the same colours (apart from the pink heels I have since added!)

And three bags -  Cath Kidston every day bag: a chuck it all in kind of bag which is indestructible;

Cream Day Bag: Soft and slouchy and it will go with everything. This one was from Warehouse last summer;

Marc Jacobs evening bag in flouro snake print: I will use this in the hotel in the evenings for phone/keys/lippy and such like. This was a birthday pressie from my in-laws, which I am very much looking forward to using.

So, that's me done! I'm really looking forward to our trip away. It's almost 14 years to the day that I last stayed in a hotel so it will be lovely to have the chance to enjoy whole days without thinking about shopping/cooking etc. Yipppeeeeeeeee! Hope that you are all enjoying the summer and don't forget to get snapping away so that you have photos to send me for a blog post of outfits worn in the sun!

Women Behaving Badly - what to do with a flamingo and a donkey (whilst wearing a Jigsaw skirt!)

You may remember that a while ago I highlighted some pieces in the Jigsaw sale which I thought were particularly good buys, and this trench skirt was one of them.

When I first put it on, although I really liked it, I wasn't 100% sure about it.  However I then got a second opinion from my husband, who has a really good eye for these things, despite not caring in the least what he wears himself. He gave it a very positive "yes" so that was a done deal.

I put it with this sequinned top from Topshop and then, for our evening out, wanted to use my new Orla Kiely bag which my husband bought me for my birthday.  It was way back in January that I first mentioned that I was after a blue bag - and the search has gone on for this long but some things are worth waiting for!

So I wore a coral belt to pick out the red/coral clasp on the bag...

...and my blue Pied a Terre T-bar sandals, to pick out the blue in the bag, and to pull the whole outfit together.

However, on arriving at our friends' house for a birthday celebration, it all went rapidly down hill on the style stakes. With a strong Mexican theme for the evening, a sombrero and chilli necklace were added to the outfit, together with a pink flamingo (not sure of the relevance of that but we found it funny) whilst my friend sported a rather stylish striped pinata.

Oh what fun we had!

On the Run - Wearing a French Connection Maxi dress and borrowing a little something from the Wardrobe across the landing!

Do you ever do things without thinking through the consequences?  Well I have got myself in a bit of a pickle with the whole swimming costume debacle. Having thrown the floor wide open for swimming costumes to come my way, I now have five of them, but I am not quite sure how to cover them on the blog.

A shot of each costume laid out somewhere, however artistically done, isn't going to convey much at all. But I am not sure that parading around in them myself is going to do much for them either, or any of the brands come to that.  So what to do? I thought about borrowing the bottom half of my eldest for some close up shots but that would be cheating - and that's one thing I couldn't do.

However, speaking of borrowing things from our eldest, I happened to come across her chambray H&M shirt this morning and I thought how well it would work over my maxi dress.

 

And when she said to me this morning "is that my shirt?" I responded with the words: "It miiiiiiiight not be." Which of course was a lie because we both knew that it was.

She was in such a good mood though that she didn't mind.  The reason for the good mood was because she was going into town with her friend to do some emergency jeans shopping.  Fortunately, this particular friend is very trustworthy, which was a good thing as everyone is fully aware of our eldest's capacity for disaster.

I gave her strict instructions to put the money I had given her into two separate purses, so that it would be more difficult for her to lose it all in one go - although she did still manage to lose her train ticket. Mind you, having said that, I locked us all out today so she probably gets it from me anyway.

 

So, anyway, here's the outfit - French Connection Maxi Dress, Long white vest from M&S layered underneath it so that I don't get arrested for indecent exposure, H&M chambray shirt and Jigsaw printed bag.

Oh, and this was probably the longest conversation that Mr SG and I had yesterday evening:

Mr SG:   "Have you had your Barnet cut?"
Me:         "Yes."
Mr SG:   "Thought so, it looks good."
Me:         "Thanks."

Never let it be said that we're not deep!

I was really excited when I heard from the Senior Editor of easyliving.co.uk today to say that the article that I had written for them about flat shoes that every woman should own, had gone live on the site. If you would like to take a read, you can do so here

Hope that you are still all enjoying the sun!

On the Run - Selfridges, Isabel Marant, Milkshakes, Louboutins and chocolate desserts - all in a (birth)day's work!

Sometimes, "doubles" have negative associations - double chins (not good) double dip recessions (not so good either) double boobs (because one's bra is too small and and there's a boob in the bra and another one at the top of it - definitely not a good look) but the day before yesterday I was "double" 21, and it wasn't so bad at all.

For a start the sun shone.  You would think that having a birthday in July would mean lots of sunny birthdays - oh no! You wouldn't believe how often it is raining on my birthday.

I started off with a short, and rather lame excuse for a, run before Mr SG went off to work. Then after a chat with my sis and my Mum, I opened the cards and pressies from the children - and amongst them was this! I could have stopped there and would have been perfectly happy.

We then headed into town for a quick stop at Selfridges, which is a great store for all of us.  The children had milkshakes, which were fab. Then we had a wander at the "gadgety area", Cath Kidston, Pedlars and also the sweets. The youngest loves escalators which is great because guess where the women's clothes are...yep, the top floor. Fantastic!

On arriving there she headed straight for these...

...the Louboutins. Let's not mess around with Dune or anything else, let's go straight for the big guns. Mind you, after the Salvador Dali experience the day before, these were small fry!

After my post on wedge trainers a few days ago, I had to smile to myself when I saw these Isabel Marant Bekket trainers.  They have been sold out for months but here they are - back in good old Selfridges in Birmingham.

Still not for me though. Nope, never. Even fickle old me won't change my mind on that one.

After our trip to Selfridges we headed to Reiss where I replaced the the bracelet that I lost the day before - and it was in the sale so it wasn't all bad.

We then collected Mr SG from work and headed to Stratford (Upon Avon) that is, not the Olympic site, where we had a picnic, went up the viewing tower in the RSC and had a boat trip  - and all in the sun! Our trip to Stratford finished with a quick look around their Jigsaw - which was lovely and light.

Then it was home for a quick shower before going to Pizza Express for dinner - always a winner with our family. Neither my son nor I could see a thing when these were taken, so it's lucky that a couple were OK.

Here I am wearing a Jigsaw dress which I have had for a couple of years and some Dune wedges.

I was due to go to the Marie Claire fashion party in London in the evening and was all ready to go.  I saw people tweeting about it in the day and was so excited but also torn and in the end, I decided to stay at home. When, in Pizza Express, our youngest said "you are the best Mummy in the world and I love you with all my heart" I was so glad that I had.

And this is what my son spent two evenings lovingly crafting - home made brownies and chocolate biscuit cake...

...which he then turned....

with great care and the assistance of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, chocolate mousse, cream, and maltesers...

...into this! And it was divine! [Note the card below, courtesy of the eldest, complete with song from 1D!]

My lovely pressies were opened at about 10pm and I am sure that many of them will be making appearances here over the next few weeks.

On the Run - in a white lace Mango dress and Episode shoes

Being British, it's only right that I should mention this fantastic weather. I am never happier when the temperature it warm enough for me to wear just three items of clothing - undies (that counts as two - just to be clear but without being too specific) and a dress.  Heaven!

As we aren't going abroad this summer, I wanted to extend an invitation to those SG readers who are, (or indeed who aren't) to get snapping whilst on holiday, with a view to featuring on the blog in all your holiday finery! Whether it's beach cover-ups, sight seeing outfits, swim wear, sundresses, shorts, or outfits for an evening out, I would love to do a post or two on what you are all wearing on holiday. So, if you can persuade your family to get snapping, whilst you channel your inner [insert words of your choosing!] that would be fantastic. Then just send me a handful of your favourite shots, letting me know where you are, and I will put some posts together.

We were having a bit of a trip out the day that these photos were taken. We started by talking to a team of firefighters who had parked up for lunch in Brindley Place in Birmingham, which was very interesting for us all!

We then went for a walk along the canal, where our youngest spotted several men without shirts - and boy did she let them know that she had spotted them! Oh crikey - where to turn?!

Once the warm weather was on its way, I decided that it was going to be dresses all they way.  It's time that they did some work for me. This is one of my favourite dresses - a white one from Mango which I bought last year and which it is rarely warm enough to wear - until now!

I agree with Grazia (above) that a white sundress is a great item to have in your Wardrobe and I like to ring the changes with the belt and the shoes I put it with. I am wearing mine with a blue belt from Topshop and pinky/red snake print flats from Episode.

Unfortunately this shot shows the last known siting of my favourite blue snake skin Reiss bracelet, which I have worn so much. We used it as a reference point when re-tracing our steps to try and find it - but all to no avail.  The children were brilliant at looking for it and were duly rewarded with milkshakes at TGI Fridays.

To escape the heat (now that's not something I could have imagined writing any time during the past few months) we went into the ICC and to the art gallery there - where they had on display, and at a perfect height for a four year old, a sculpture by Salvador Dali worth £27 500. She was mesmerised by it - together with the other two on display - so rather than being bored as I hoped she might be when I saw the price, she wanted to stay for ages. And at we all know at that age, it only takes one sneeze, one trip, one involuntary movement before everything comes crashing down. Oh help!

On the Run: Miranda Kerr - Not so much a style crush as a style inspiration

I'm not really one for having crushes on anyone, whether it be of a style nature or any other nature - that is excluding Gary Lineker and Gary Barlow of course - but those "crushes" have existed for far too long to be classed as crushes in any event!

There are celebs/A-listers who I think rarely put a fashion foot wrong - Diane Kruger and Solange Knowles to name but two but on the whole, a lot of celebrities just irritate me.

When I saw this picture of Miranda Kerr last week, her dress reminded me very much of a dress that I have had sitting in my wardrobe for quite some time, and it gave me the impetus to dig it out.  Not so much a style crush as a kick up the bum to get something different on (weather permitting)!



                                                     

Now clearly I don't have Miranda's figure on my side, nor the Balenciaga shoes to go with the dress, nor indeed the big burly bodyguard (I would make a joke here about not needing a body guard as no-one would want to steal our children but that would be in bad taste).  However, as far as the dress being similar goes, I think Oasis was way ahead of the game, all those years ago! What do you reckon?

Bet she can't chuck her dress in the wash when her little munchkin wipes his dirty mitts all over it. But then again I don't suppose dry cleaning bills are much of an issue for her.

Dress Oasis - over half a decade old now
Shoes by Jigsaw - ditto
Owner - starting the slow but steady creep into her fifth decade tomorrow!