Loving Gwyneth still.

It has been nine months since dear Gwyneth strode out to the Iron Man premiere in that Preen dress. And I've been in love ever since. I love her minis with tough skyscaper heels, I love her elbow sleeved jackets. It's all so classic LBD with a edgy twist. So totally fashionista but so easy to copy, so long as you spend hours down the gym of course.

So my new bandage dress will go very well with some skyscaper bondage heels and a tuxedo jacket. You can tone it down with some black tights or throw the tights away to show off some killer legs.

That's my Saturday night outfit people, oh yes.

The countdown has begun...

Only 23 days until Confessions of a Shopaholic!!!!!!! 

I love Isla Fisher, with her long tumbling ginger locks, her cute ditzyness but fierce, knowing intelligence and feminist proclivities... and, well, any woman engaged to Borat has to have a sense of humour! 

I've seen some of the previews, her clothes in the film will be so fabulous. All trenchcoats and peeptoes and quirky belts and pencil skirts. I'm so excited. It's like Sex and the City: The Movie all over again.

I love Luella...

There are some designers who I think produce very fuckin' weird clothing. Pucci for example, how are those ridiculous prints going to flatter anyone? Or Gareth Pugh, with his weird space age collections that no average girl would be seen dead in. 

However, there are some designers that I want to cuddle and take to bed with me because their clothes are just so chic and wearable but edgy, fun and totally feminine. 

Luella Bartley is one of these such designers, and so when I got told at a party at the weekend that my purple gingham-print low-cut forties-style top from River Island with a very tight nurse belt was very 'Luella', I was so happy I think I actually stroked the poor girl.  

I have always loved Luella's fabulous clothes, the way she plays with checks and tight waists and prom dresses. Her cute designs on T-shirts and the amazing extras that just totally make the outfit, like little frills, flowers, pearls and pink veils with hearts in them. 

Any woman who says she makes "the kind of clothes you can get drunk and fall over in" is definitely my kind of woman. 

I have featured two of my favourites, this fabulous black prom dress with a gorgeous sweetheart neckline and v. cute T-shirt, both on sale at Net-a-porter now! Sadly I still can't afford them but Luella's influence is still rampaging through the high street, in fact, as further evidence, she made her first collection for New Look back in 2002. So it's easy to copy her girlish, romantic style. So hurrah for the high street and hurrah for Luella. 

Shoe Pervert - Cutaways and multi strap shoe boots.

Every year there is a particular design of shoe that catches the nations imagination.
A year ago, shoeboots came roaring into fashion, two years ago, peeptoe platforms, and so on and so forth.
For 2009 it seems that many, many straps are the order of the day. It's a look I like very much - it's so teasing, with little glimmers of flesh, it's like the cutaway bandage dress, but on your feet. There is something very S&M and bondage about it. And I have been obsessed with bondage-esque shoes since dear Sarah Jessica started wearing them eight months ago.
The ever edgier Top Shop is working this look better than any other high street chain, and proves it works well on all sorts of shoes, in a subtle way with grey cutaway sandals, £60, or on a sandal shoe boot, £70, to help keep the ankles warm until March.

Shoe Pervert - Sod the spring collections, these boots are the sexiest thing since sliced bread. Let it stay cold forever!

From Aldo, now a mere £62 in the sale.

Shoe pervert - I changed my mind.

Ok, last week I created a sister blog to Sartorial: Shoe Pervert. As the name suggests, Shoe Pervert was dedicated solely to the illustrious wonder and fascination I have for shoes. I decided to do this after realising I possibly spend more time shoe perving than I do looking at any other type of clothing.
However, it didn't work and so will return to being a mere feature on Sartorial. It didn't work for three reasons:
One, I'm not a computer nerd, there are lots of things about this blogging malarky I'm still working out. I couldn't work out how to connect my sister blog to my, er, mother blog, I couldn't work out how to get my tweets onto Shoe Pervert or Shoe Pervert onto twitter and the design kind of looked, well, a bit shit. I'm not saying Sartorial is fantastic, but definitely passable.
Second, despite appearances I don't spend my entire life shopping. (I wish.) I do actually have a full time job and don't actually have time to write TWO blogs, with decent posts on each.
And finally, I missed putting up pictures of shoes on my mother blog.
However, I didn't want to deprive my 'huge' audiences (Hi Gary) of my shoe perving over the past week. So now I will also post the shoes I have salivated over this week. It's a bumper Shoe Pervert edition!
First up, my Shoe pervert pledge:
Although one of my goals for the year is to save up to buy a pair of designer shoes (I thought it was about time I owned a pair, which I will probably never wear for fear of them getting hurt and just keep them at home to cuddle) I am all about the affordable fashion, high street copies, designer rip offs. I cannot afford Manolos, in fact sometimes Top Shop is a stretch for me.
And so my pledge is to never, ever feature a pair of shoes that cost more than £100. To be honest, even £100 feels a little steep to me for a pair of shoes, but I felt I should go that high for when boot season comes round again.
Shoe pervert is about affordable, but still beautiful and covetable footwear.

I bought things I couldn't afford...

This week, I have been rather ill. And anyone who has come anywhere near me knows it... when I'm ill, I moan and moan and moan. Feeling unhealthy is one of my least favourite things. In fact, I may hate it more than ugly shoes, at least I can ignore ugly shoes. Anyway, to cheer myself up from my illness, I went shopping and bought two rather beautiful items I'm so excited about, I just had to share them.

One is this fantastic red chain handbag with HEART SHAPED QUILTING!! No man needs to bother buying my Valentines present, I just bought it for myself. It's marc b, only £20 in the sale. Sigh with joy, contentment, wonderlust.

Next up is the purchase I feel somewhat guilty for. I simply cannot afford it. I'm meant to be paying off my overdraft, not buying uber tiny, uber tight preen-esque bandage dresses. But it seems with my sickness I have dropped some pounds and can now pour my new taut/malnourished body into this very sexy cross backed black dress from rare (£59) rather comfortably.

I love them so. I just had to post them. In fact, expect me to do this everytime I go shopping. Showing off makes me happy.

The fashion victim I am - how I'm starting to like western fringing now it's becoming popular.

It's bloody expensive and it's a total fad. It looks horrible on shoes, skirts, tops, dresses. Once upon a time I thought it looked pretty naff on bags too. 

But I'm starting to covet a black fringed bag or mega clutch a'la Prada and everyone, from Top Shop to Oasis and back again, are doing fabulous versions. 

But maybe this is the one subtle way of wearing the trend without looking too, well, Western. 

So you can do trendy rock chick with your fringed shoulder bag, biker jacket, skinnies and strappy shoe boots. 

Or you can do extreme fashionista with a little sparkly dress, strappy shoe boots (oh how they work with everything!) and your fringed clutch. 

In fact Leona (right) proves a fringed shopper looks pretty good with the casual belted cardie over vest look too. 

But I can foresee this trend being a stick in the mud, it will look good for approximately ten minutes. Which makes it such a shame it's so god damn pricey. The cheap ones look just that, cheap. So unless you are willing to spend a minimum of 50 quid, forget it and stick to chain bags. 

Shoe Pervert - proof that ruffles are still in

New in at Faith, £65 

The meanness of Dorothy Perkins

I'm skint.

I'm desperately trying to save some cash, pay off some debts, pay for a holiday. But it seems we have a saboteur in our midsts. 

How dare Dorothy Perkins bring out an affordable catwalk inspired Spring Collection that is making me dribble all over my copy of Look magazine.

How dare they include cute Audrey style red shift dresses embellished with a cute little rose at the waist, how dare they have cute little polka dot and floral vintage inspired pieces, and most importantly, how DARE they bring out the most beautiful pink cross over court shoes with a snakeskin stiletto. At £55 it's the closest I will ever get to owning anything like a Miu Miu creation. 

I'm destined to be poor forever and ever.   

Going Gaga for the lady.

It's only the 13th of January and already it seems

we have a new style icon for 2009.

At just 22 Lady Gaga has hit number one with her single Just Dance, she has written songs for Britney and Christina has copied her style (Jealous, moi?).

My lord this woman can dress. So much attitude, this amazing Blondie vibe with a very current twist.  

In her music video for Just dance she stomps into a house party in huge patent black and gold heels, huge sunnies and a big shoulder-padded pink coat, later she poses on a sofa in a huge leopard print smock and tiny little patent black ankle boots. The lines in her clothes are beautifully messy and contrasted. Her blonde hair is cut sharp, lightening bolts across her very conventionally pretty face make her seem unique and unconventional.  

I admit it's not my usual thing. She's too edgy for my usual tastes. However, if Christina sees something in her, then I can god damn well too. 

And her song makes me feel happy. Really digging the electro pop right now. 

All hail the rise and rise of Lady Gaga.

Shoe Pervert - now this is the ONLY way I would ever consider attempting the eighties revival.

The eighties are back...

After taking a sneaky peek at this 2009's Spring/Summer collections it seems the high street isn't going to allow me to escape my youth.

Eighties high glamour is in for your average girl. Tacky lighting stripe style belts, off the shoulder baggy T-shirts, footless leggings under lime green dresses, ruffled pastel-coloured prom dresses with flat shoes, side ponytails - oh how irony covers a multitude of sins. 

It looks like I shall be out of step next season if this continues. However, I did spy two other trends that could help empty my purse. 

Vintage polka dots are back (in my land, they never went away) as is Buttercup, a look to be found at River Island, all cute check dresses with stompy slouchy cowgirl boots. Now that excites me.  

A bag that made me dribble all over someone on a crowded tube

I'm not even that into bags - but this was just strokeably wonderful.

Miu Miu, quilted, big chunky gold clasp, beautiful soft black leather, it was structured yet casual all at the same time, but it wasn't just these mere things that did it for me. What really got my attention? The big gold chain.

Once so chavvy, the big gold chain was once synonymous with adidas, chunky gold hoop earrings on Essex girls with a croydon facelift. Now, ever since the infamous  Marc Jacobs 'Stam bag' (see right) the big chunky gold chain is so chic in an ironic, rock chick kind of way. It's a bit tough, says that you can cope on your own (well, if anyone tried to mug you and you lumped 'um with that chain it would do quite some damage.)  

What I would give to be Jessica Stam with my own version in ever colour... at £744 a piece, not in my lifetime. 

The softer Chanel chain is something I also adore. 

The chain is a fashion piece that has been around a while - the 'Stam bag' is in fact more than a year old. Hardly cutting edge. However, I feel the chain is enjoying a resurgence. A chained bag will be the bag of choice for 2009.  And Elle magazine agrees with me, so it must be true. 

Hearts on clothes - so so cute!

How is it, that if you add something heart shaped to an item of dull clothing, it suddenly becomes oh so desirable?

Maybe it's just that Valentines Day is coming up - but I have noticed designers and high street shops adding this little motif to perk up their pieces.

Kate Moss's dull grey cardie from Top Shop is suddenly so much cuter with hearts sewed onto the pockets. And Alexander McQueen have the cutest pair of electric pink court shoes, with a heart shape cut-out at the toe. Awwwwww! I've fallen in love! Someone please do a high street version! Sadly I don't have £435 to spend on one pair of shoes.

Urban outfitters long gold lovespinner necklace also adds to the romance and the heart shaped clutch (versions can be found in both from Faith and Accessorise) has been a coveted item for quite some time.

Screw going on a date - this Valentines, I'm going shopping.

Denim features are so dull

One mag clothing feature I always without fail flick straight through and never read is the 'denim feature.'

This is not because I don't wear jeans - I do. I have a grey pair of skinnies, a black pin striped pair of skinnies, some baggy boyfriend jeans and even some old bootcuts that don't really see the light of day. Jeans are wonderfully versatile and when worn with the right things extremely stylish.

It's just denim is a staple, it's the backdrop to the rest of your outfit - it isn't revolutionary and it doesn't really change that often. I'm so bored about reading how a denim mini skirt or jacket is the new way to wear denim, when I'm sure I was wearing both at the age of eight.

Also, denim is not beautiful. It doesn't make me swoon to look at it. I have never lusted after the perfect pair of jeans. I'm far too busy looking at the pretty shoes.

When I flick through my latest Glamour, Elle, etc - I want to look at beautiful things, I want to covet what's on it's pages. I've never coveted a pair of jeans, ever.

And it annoys me how the mags have been desperate to get us out of skinny jeans for about two years. A recent poll shoes that skinny jeans are the average girls favourite clothing purchase, so they may indeed stick around for a while to come. Baggy boyfriend jeans are great for lazy sundays but they don't work down the pub/club. With a shiny top and nice heels, skinnies do work down the pub/club. They fit inside knee high boots far easier and they also have that French joie de vivre, especially when worn with Chanel pumps (great high street rip offs to be found, I especially like Dorothy Perkins and Primark do an uber cheap pair for just £6 right now.)

I think I might go give my skinny jeans a little cuddle. Perhaps I don't appreciate my 'outfit backdrop' quite enough.

Happy 100th Birthday to the bob.

Not strictly Sartorial but I, incidently, do sport one, albeit a curly version.

According to an article I read in the Metro this morning, in the 1920's when the bob first gained prominence in the US, the church said 'a bobbed woman is a disgraced woman' and some husbands in fact divorced their wives for cutting her hair in this way.

So if the bob isn't a revolutionary 'fuck you sexiest society' statement I don't know what is.

I officially love my fuck you statement.  

Shoe Pervert - check the metal stiletto spike heel, beautiful!