The 12 outfits of Christmas

Feb15

Christmas is my favourite time of the year, not least because it brings everyone together and helps you to really appreciate the wonderful people that are a part of your life. Christmas also makes it legitimate to wear as much glitter and sparkle as possible! The shops begin Christmas sometime in October but I refuse to get too into it until December.

On 1st December, out came the advent calendars, including one for Rufus of course, which by Christmas Eve he had completely annihilated!

This was also the day of the first outfit of Christmas as we enjoyed a festive curry with friends that evening. I wore a navy glitter dot dress from Oasis with navy suede heels from New Look and a matching clutch from Boohoo. I even had my nails navy with the ring finger glittery. The dress was a surprising disappointment on the quality front, particularly given my love for Oasis and the usual excellent quality. The glitter shed itself all night, adding plenty of sparkle to the curry house and the next passenger in my husband’s car!

I always like to arrange a trip somewhere to really get me in the mood for Christmas, so this year I chose one of the best and most famous Christmas markets in the UK – Bath. My second outfit of Christmas comes in here. I wore a red dress from Oasis with a mid brown funnel princess coat also Oasis and some black suede, calf high, slouch boots (yes you guessed it – Oasis) that I have been lusting after for a couple of years so finally treated myself to.

Bath is somewhere I have wanted to go for some time and it didn’t disappoint although sadly the weather did. Rather than a nice crisp winters day with a few light flurries of snow that would have made it the quintessential start to Christmas, we were treated to drizzle!

The market stretched for miles through the Georgian streets, selling everything from paintings and crafts to hot chocolate and waffles! I was drawn by the smell of citrus fruits and cinnamon to a beautiful Christmas wreath stall. We also got a couple of unusual presents for people.

While in Bath you have to visit the Roman baths it is famous for. The baths are one of the most visited historical sights in the UK. The thermal spring rises here meaning the baths flow naturally with hot water. Bathing was a major part of Roman society and culture and this sight has been remarkably well preserved.

From Roman times to the late 1700’s, we had afternoon tea at The Regency Tea Rooms above the Jane Austin centre. Jane was fascinated by bath, mentioning it in all her novels and even making it the setting for a couple of her stories. We enjoyed the ‘tea with Mr Darcy’ served by waiters and waitresses in period costume, and avoided the worst of the rain.

After more shopping we warmed ourselves with a drink at the Abbey Hotel’s Apres ski bar.

As darkness fell, the beautiful streets and chalets were lit with pretty fairy lights and we finished the day with carols at the Abbey.

The following day, inspired by our trip, we put up all the Christmas decorations at home, while enjoying a snowball of course!

Mum and I went to see the Tina Turner musical the weekend before Christmas, so this was outfit number three! I wore a navy glitter knit dress from Warehouse with a pink shearling coat from Zara. After the fantastic show, we took in the lights of Covent Garden as we headed for dinner at Browns.

Outfit four was for Christmas drinks with friends and was a black blouse with gold spots from Oasis with black leggings, also Oasis, with black stilettos with a bow detail on the back from New Look.

We had an early Christmas day, on the Sunday before, at my Mums with my gorgeous nieces and for this I wore my soft animal print dress from Oasis with purple Ugg boots.

Christmas Eve arrived and we had both sets of parents over for dinner. I wore my gingerbread men christmas jumper from Oasis with a velvet mini skirt from New Look. We had a great meal, followed by a board game and then headed to midnight mass.

Christmas day was spent as a couple this year. We had bucks fizz and scrambled eggs with smoke salmon for breakfast. We cooked a wonderful Christmas dinner in the evening and in between pigged out on nuts and sweets while finally wrapping the rest of the presents. This year I decided to get crafty with my wrapping. I wrapped the presents in brown paper and added red and white twine, stickers from a Kikki K book and fancy tags, finishing with a slice of dried orange.

Christmas day saw me wear a fun Christmas t-shirt I got from River Island some years back and a checked mini skirt from Oasis. I was spoilt rotten with beautiful gifts, as was Rufus, who had a Christmas eve box, his own Christmas dinner and a blanket with his name embroidered on it from spoilt rotten pets!

Boxing day was a total chill out day, spent in our pyjamas on the sofa watching DVD’s so outfit eight was lounge clothes and cute slippers from Oasis. I did move from the sofa briefly to make some gingerbread men!

We met Mum’s family in London on 27th for a delicious meal at The Parcel Yard in Kings Cross station. Afterwards my husband and I sipped champagne at the champagne bar at St Pancras. I wore a knitted stripped sparkle dress from Oasis with the same mid brown coat and slouch boots I wore to Bath earlier in the month.

An afternoon with Phil’s family was spent in black skinny jeans from New Look, slogan t-shirt from Boohoo and a grey cardigan from Oasis.

My Mum and I had the great treat of taking my nieces to the pantomime which was Cinderella this year. For this I wore a mustard jumper and denim pinafore – both Oasis but to complete the look wore the wonderful Cinderella shoe necklace that my parents-in-law got me for Christmas.

All too soon, it was New Years Eve and I must be getting old as I turned down various invitations, to spend the evening in pyjamas, watching DVD’s and drinking fizz with a glowing log burner and my Yankee candles to add a bit of hygge.

So I saw out 2018 in outfit twelve of my Mary Poppins pyjamas from Marks and Spencer. New Year always marks a time of reflection on things achieved and those still to achieve. Once again I made a long list of New Year’s resolutions. This year I am determined to at least achieve one and it’s a big one – to lose nearly three stone in weight. I’m the heaviest I have ever been. Weight is sneeky – it creeps up on you and enough is enough. I started well with a seven mile walk around Riverside Country Park on New Year’s Day! Let’s see if 2019 is the year I finally achieve that.

What resolutions did you make and how are you doing with them so far?

I Believe in Pink

Aug8

One sunny Saturday in July, my Mum and I visited the National Portrait Gallery in London to see an Audrey Hepburn exhibition. Audrey was a fashion and film star and according to People’s magazine one of the top 50 most beautiful women in the world. Perhaps what made her so beautiful was her innocence, shyness and vulnerability; she never saw herself as beautiful.

Audrey Hepburn by Bud Fraker, for ‘Sabrina’, Paramount Pictures, 1954

The exhibition documents the film stars life through more than 70 images, many previously unseen – consisting of photographs, film stills and vintage magazine covers. Also displayed are a pair of her leather ballet shoes.

Audrey Hepburn on location in Africa for The Nun’s Story by Leo Fuchs, 1958 ©Leo Fuchs

Audrey died in 1993 in Switzerland with her two sons and partner by her side. Now, over 20 years later – she still remains an incredible icon; as an actress, a fasionista and a humanitarian for her work with UNICEF which she became a special ambassador of in 1988. She is a truly inspirational woman and a positive role model for women everywhere. After her death, Italian shoe designer, Salvatore Ferrugamo created a ballet pump style shoe named after her.

Audrey was born in 1929 in Belgium, although through her father she was a British Citizen. She was an accomplished ballet dancer who was dancing by the age of 5, however her ballet teachers deemed her too tall to make a profession of it.

Dance recital photograph by Manon van Suchtelen, 1942 ©Reserved

Her father abandoned the family when she was young and he and her mother later divorced in 1935. In 1937 Audrey and her mother moved to Kent where she attended a small private school in Eltham. Upon the breakout of World War 2, Audrey and her mother fled to her mother’s native country, the Netherlands; falsely believing that they would be safer there. Audrey adopted a Dutch name so as to not stand out. They lived in Arnhem which I myself have visited and seen the bridge that was the centre of the battle of Arnhem; see previous blog. Audrey danced to raise money for the Dutch resistance and couriered letters for them. Times were hard with problems with supplies getting through and Audrey suffered malnutrition as well as depression. This perhaps inspired her later work with UNICEF. After the war they moved to Amsterdam. She then travelled to London where she continued with her study of ballet and also did some modelling. In 1948 she became a chorus girl in London’s West End.

She had numerous small film roles during the early 50’s as well as becoming the face of Lux soap. The first thing people probably remember her for was her performance in Gigi on Broadway in 1951. In 1953 she landed the lead role in a film called Roman Holiday for which she received numerous awards and this could be said to have launched her career.

For me one of her most famous roles was as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s which was at the height of Audrey’s career in 1961. There were people that thought her taking this role was risky due to the characters loose morals. The film is about transformation and the American dream and of course Audrey’s own life can be seen to have followed a Cinderella theme as did many of her film roles.

Image courtesy of The Daily Mail

Her relationship with Givenchy, the Parisian courtier began with the film Sabrina, when pre-production in 1953 she visited him in Paris and used some of his samples for her character in the film. He was never given credit for Sabrina but Audrey made sure his name was always mentioned on her future films. She had a unique style and knew what features she wanted to emphasis; as Chanel says ‘Fashion changes, but style endures’. What began as a business relationship became much more than that and they remained friends right up until her death. She often described him as her psychiatrist. My favourite picture from the exhibition was this one of her in a pink Givenchy dress.

Audrey Hepburn photographed wearing Givenchy by Norman Parkinson, 1955 © Norman Parkinson Ltd/Courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive

For this day I wore a pair of wide leg trousers from Oasis. These form part of their current collection which is a collaboration with the V&A museum (a museum close to my heart since the Alexander McQueen exhibition and Shoes: Pleasure and Pain ). The museum gave Oasis some historical prints from its archives for them to bring to life in a new collection. This particular print is an 18^th century print by London-based designer, William Kilburn. I coordinated this with a simple pink vest top from Oasis as I wanted the trousers to be the stand out piece of the outfit. For shoes I matched the background navy colour with these navy, suede Mary Janes which my Mum kindly treated me to in M&S on one of our shopping trips. I like to match shoes and bag and this navy Hobo, also from Oasis is stylish as well as practical – with room for all your bits and bobs. The outfit was finished off with my tribute to Audrey Hepburn – a small tiara like the one Holly wears in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Unfortunately I didn’t quite master the beehive to match.

I wanted to also share my Mum’s outfit of the day as I thought that she looked great too. She wore some beautiful LK Bennett shoes with an M&S blue broderie anglaise dress and accessorized with a LK Bennett clutch bag.

After the exhibition; we continued the glamour and got a black cab to Doubletree by Hilton, Westminster hotel where we enjoyed a pink afternoon tea. We were greeted with pink champagne and our tea was then brought out in a wooden box which didn’t really have the same appeal as the tiered cake stands which are usually provided. Unfortunately this was not one of my favourite teas – being somewhat of an afternoon tea queen as there were only a few sandwiches and the cakes were not really to my taste. The pink theme was consistent however, as along with the usual assortment of sandwiches and scones, there was a pink cone with cream in it, a tart with a pink macaroon on and a champagne truffle sprinkled with pink sugar. I have to admit it was good value for money given that it was under £30 for the two of us.

All in all we had a lovely day as we always do when we get together.

There are many famous quotes from Audrey, my favourite being ‘nothing is impossible, even the word says I’m possible.’ My inspiration for the title of this blog came from the quote ‘I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.’ If this quote isn’t a mantra for all women to live their lives by then I don’t know what is.

The Audrey exhibition runs until 18^th October and is definitely worth a visit.

You Shall go to the Ball

Apr19

The end of March/beginning of April saw Cinderella fever as a new Disney movie, based on the classic fairytale and starring Lily James was released. The first written version of the story was published in Naples in 1634. 1904 saw it debut in London as a pantomime and the first Disney animation was released in 1950. Over the years, Cinderella has become the most loved of the Disney princesses so it is no surprise that Disney decided to issue a remake. This version despite being Disney was filmed in the UK.

A completely free – (yes you read that correctly) exhibition of the costumes/props from the new Disney movie was held in Leicester Square for a few weeks. Tickets were hard to come by but I managed to book some for the Saturday over Easter. Unfortunately I was unable to go due to my eye problem reoccurring and was gutted. My own prince attempted to make up for it though by making me an afternoon tea at home and bringing home a Costa latte for me. It seemed like I was destined not to go to the ball but as a last ditch attempt I queued one night after work to try and see it. I queued for two hours but it was well worth it – seems I was allowed to the ball after all.

Swarovski an Austrian firm founded in 1895, collaborated with Sandy Powell – the costume designer for the film to add sparkle to the production. In all 1.7 million finely cut crystals are used in the film. The Step Mother’s dress is encrusted with black crystals and Cinderella’s ball gown looks magical with the crystal adornment. The fairy Godmothers dress and wand also feature crystals. Cinderella’s ball gown is made of 24 layers of tulle with a circumference of 11.6m.

Cinderella’s Step Mother

The prince and cinderella at the ball

The star of the exhibition and indeed the film was of course the glass slipper also made by Swarovski. The shoe has a 6 inch heel and has 221 facets in a light reflecting crystal blue Aurora Borealis coating and weighs just less than 1kg. It took 6 versions and 150 hours to create the final shoe. 4 pairs were made with each individual shoe costing £20,000. At the exhibition they took a photo and superimposed the glass slipper on your foot so that everyone could feel like a princess.

The famous slipper

A princess for the day

Mac released a special limited edition Cinderella make up range of which I adored the stroke of midnight eye shadow palette and the Royal Ball lipstick – sadly though supplies of them were limited and I was unable to purchase either. I did however get the Morgan Taylor Cinderella collection nail varnishes set which includes an iconic blue named ‘if the slipper fits’.

Being the shoe fiend that I am, I also couldn’t resist this cup from the Disney store.

I finally saw the film last weekend and I wasn’t disappointed. The remake has been very loyal to the original but with deeper characters. The butterfly is used throughout to symbolise Cinderella’s transformation as well as her freedom. In the beginning of the film her father brings her a butterfly toy and her dress for the ball is also adorned with them as is the glass slipper. I almost love butterflies as much as shoes so the glass slipper would be a dream come true. For the trip to the cinema I wore the outfit that I had planned to wear to the exhibition had I not ended up going straight from work. I thought given the saying that ‘Cinderella is proof that a shoe can change your life’ my t-shirt from New Look was very fitting. I paired this with a light pink waffle textured balloon midi skater skirt from New Look and then styled it up with these gorgeous polka dot 50’s style heels which my Mum treated me to some time back in Marks and Spencer and go so well with many different outfits.

Little girls everywhere have grown up hoping that their prince will come and they will live happily ever after as in the story; however as Carrie says in the Sex and the City film ‘in real life things don’t always work out like that.’ Happy ever after is different for every person and for some women that doesn’t include marriage. Are all women always looking for something else to complete their fairy tale ending? We are told now that women can have it all but do they always want it all? I know I am unusual nowadays but I for one will be quite satisfied becoming a stay at home Mum; surely women’s liberation is about giving us a choice of which path we want to take? Hopefully we all live happily ever after.

blahnikgirl

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The 12 outfits of Christmas

I Believe in Pink

You Shall go to the Ball