Outfit: Which Shoes-day Tuesday?

I couldn’t decide which shoes to wear this morning. This is unusual for me as I will often start an outfit with the shoes and build up from there. The grey shoes I had on yesterday were the obvious choice but I wore those yesterday and they were a bit, well, obvious. Plus it might rain and pale grey suedette + rain = disaster! I wanted an unexpected pop of colour so I put on my yellow wedges. I loved the combination of the yellow shoe and teal tights but with the length of the dress the straps cut off my leg somewhat. I will definitely do this combination at some point when I’m wearing my teal skirt which is shorter than this dress. In the end I plumped for red shoes. They match my lipstick and I’m using my red bag today. I’m thinking of introducing another life motto: if in doubt, wear red shoes.

Teal knit dress – Long Tall Sally (eBay)
Grey cashmere cardi (worn as shrug) – Marks & Spencer (eBay)
Teal tights – Accessorize
Red shoes – Next
Silver belt – Primark

(Yellow wedges - Priceless Shoes)

Total Est. Cost £75

This Week I Will Be Mostly…

…wearing polo neck sweaters
…reading the October issue of US In Style
…watching Sex & The City DVDs
…listening to Little Shop of Horrors (what with the 21st day approaching and all)
…eating chicken
…shopping for US magazines

Outfit: Monday

It’s dull and grey again but dry for the third day in a row. I don’t think I can remember the last time we had 3 dry days in a row.

Grey polo neck sweater – Long Tall Sally
Black waistcoat – Next Tall
Skinny jeans – Topshop Tall
Grey faux suede shoes – New Look (charity shop)

Total Est. Cost £63

Weekend Recap

After a late night on Friday, we slept in Saturday morning and then I headed off to meet my sister. We went back to our hometown where my old church was having a heritage display. There were loads of old photographs and things on display and it was really interesting. We had a walk around the town and then popped in to see our parents. My outfit was an exact repeat of Wednesday’s.

Yesterday morning I went to Tesco to do the shopping, and then in the afternoon the young man and I went for a walk.

Brown long sleeve t – Tall Girls
Jeans – Gap
Brown cowboy boots – New Look

Total Est. Cost £82


In the evening my sister had arranged a meal out at a Chinese buffet with our cousin and his wife, so we headed across the city to meet them.



Pink faux wrap top – Long Tall Sally (eBay)
Sequin embellished jeans – Long Tall Sally
Pink jacket – Long Tall Sally (eBay)
Pink shoes – Faith
Pink flower – Primark

Total Est. Cost £61

Outfit: Friday Night Wedding Reception

We went to a really lovely and quite posh hotel for some friends’ wedding reception on Friday evening. It was the usually buffet & disco type affair and everyone had a really good time.

Teal shrug – Ann Taylor Loft (charity shop)
Green lace trim cami – Long Tall Sally
Black trousers – Tall Girls
Black & cream shoes – Next (charity shop)
Teal heart necklace – Scope

Total Est. Cost £46

LTS Now Available On ASOS.com

That’s right, ASOS are carrying a small selection of Long Tall Sally items on their site. The prices are the same as the regular ones, so I suppose it depends who is offering the best discount (ASOS seem to have some promotion or another running pretty much all the time) as to where you buy from (assuming the item you want is carried by ASOS. Also, it will be a battle for the best markdowns come sale time!

However, ASOS currently have the edge on their shipping costs - £4.95 for next day (£3.95 standard) at ASOS compared to £7.95 for next day (£4.95 standard) at Long Tall Sally.

Review: Boots No7 Extreme Length Mascara

I bought a tube of this mascara at Boots the other day as I had a £5 No7 voucher to spend and had already exhausted the eye shadow and nail polish colours that I wanted using previous vouchers. Boots are offering a free smoky eye kit (4 eye shadows and a double ended brush/applicator) with this mascara at the moment and I was pleased to discover that I could use my voucher and still get the free gift. The mascara is pretty good. When products are called anything with the word ‘extreme’ in the title I am always sceptical. I wouldn’t say that this mascara provides extreme length, but it certainly coats the lashes well and separates them without clumping. For me, any length extension usually comes from the fact that my lashes are blond at the ends and applying mascara makes the ends more visible, thereby seeming to extend the length. This product is no exception in this respect but it is a mascara I will be happy to use and I would definitely recommend buying it whilst the free eye shadow kit is available.
No7 Extreme Lash Mascara is available in Black or Brown/Black for £11.50 from Boots.

Outfit: Wet and Rainy Friday

It’s raining, just for a change. It wasn’t actually supposed to rain until later. Some friends of ours are getting married today so I hope it dries up for them. We are going to their evening do tonight so expect a second outfit picture either later on or tomorrow, depending how much time I have.
Anyway, I feared rain today so wanted to wear my cowboy boots again as I’m trying to get them really comfy so I can wear them in New York. And I thought why not pair them with a skirt this time rather than hiding them under jeans.

Brown polo neck sweater – Long Tall Sally
Denim skirt – Topshop Tall (refashioned from jeans by me)
Brown tights – Topshop
Brown cowboy boots – New Look
Brown belt – Dorothy Perkins
Brown & silver bangles – Dorothy Perkins
Teal beads – Claire’s

Total Est. Cost £101

Outfit: Dull Thursday

It’s grey & dull outside (what, again? Surely not!) so some colour was needed to try to brighten things up a little. I am loving the round neck on this tank top, it just feels so much more stylish than a v neck for some reason. And the yellow shoes add a real pop of colour.

Purple tank sweater – Long Tall Sally
White shirt – Next
Grey jeans – Gap
Yellow wedges – Priceless Shoes
Purple necklace – Christmas gift

Total Est. Cost £59

Grey Jeans

In my home town in the late 1980s, a new pedestrianised shopping area was opened. One of the units was occupied for a time by some kind of junk shop. It sold allsorts of things – I don’t know whether the items were new, they were more likely second hand but I don’t recall it being a charity shop. My sister bought a video cassette there once although we didn’t have a video recorder at the time. (We were the last people I knew to get a video recorder, I think I was in high school by the time we got one.) Years later, when my parents finally rented a video recorder (they still rented the TV & video up until last year – the young man’s parents still rent theirs), she dug out the cassette to play it and we discovered that it was too small for the machine, despite it being in the regular size box. It wasn’t until fairly recently I figured out that it must have been a Betamax tape (I was about 6 when VHS won the format war and had never seen a Betamax cassette before) (and the spell check on here doesn’t even recognise the word Betamax!).
Anyway, hanging in that same shop for a long time were two pairs of faded, pale grey skinny jeans. (Of course, back then, to me they were just jeans. Flares were something worn by your dad in the 1970s and were to be ridiculed at every opportunity.) They were about two sizes too small for me but for some reason I loved them and have always secretly hankered after a pair of grey jeans ever since. I think that is why I decided to go ahead and buy the pair I’m wearing today. That, and the £7.99 price tag of course!

Outfit: Comfy Wednesday

Sometimes it’s best to keep it simple and comfortable and that’s just what I’m doing today. I can see this becoming a favourite outfit combination this Autumn/Winter so you will definitely see it, or variations on it, again.

Black polo neck sweater – Long Tall Sally
Jeans – Gap
Brown cowboy boots – New Look

Total Est. Cost £99

This Week I Will Be Mostly…

…wearing my LTS purchases
…reading the October issues of Glamour & Elle
…watching Sex & The City DVDs
…listening to the Evita soundtrack
…eating whatever’s in the freezer
…shopping for new GHDs

Outfit: Blue & Red Tuesday

This outfit was inspired by a picture I saw in a magazine and cut out to stick in my lookbook. The bright colours help to liven up yet another grey day in the North. When the Justified and Ancients of Mu Mu (aka the KLF) said ‘It’s Grim Up North’, they weren’t wrong!

Blue cardi – Ethel Austin
Black & cream stripe dress – charity shop
Blue tights – Accessorize
Red shoes – Barratts
Red belt – Market stall
Red bangles – Primark

Total Est. Cost £29

Outfit: Monday

Someone put the heating on in this office on Friday so for once it’s not absolutely freezing in here this morning. However, I was taking no chances, hence the sweater and thick tights. My new white shirt sleeves would be long enough to poke out of the ends of my sweater sleeves were the sleeves on the sweater not quite so long!

Black Argyle pattern sweater – Next Tall
Black skirt – Long Tall Sally
White shirt – Long Tall Sally
Purple tights – New Look
Black patent lace up shoes – Matalan

Outfit: Sunday

Went to church in the morning then stopped off at Tesco on the way back to do the weekly shop. At least it saves me having to go this afternoon! We had some friends over last night for tea and to play on the Wii.

Mint green top – Long Tall Sally
Jeans – Dorothy Perkins Tall
Red shoes – Next
Red beads – eBay
Red belt (on jeans) – Next

Total Est. Cost £57

Outfit: Saturday

We went to a wedding on Saturday. I wore this for the ceremony and then wore dark jeans and my black bustier top for the evening do. We weren’t invited to the afternoon reception.

Brown jacket – Long Tall Sally
Brown trousers – Long Tall Sally
Green cami – Long Tall Sally
Brown shoes – Robero Vianni (Debenhams)
Brown flower in hair – bought by one of the ‘hens’ for my sister’s hen do
Brown necklace – Scope

Total Est. Cost £99

White Shirts: The Search for the Holy Grail

For the past few years I have been on a search for the ‘Holy Grail’ of white shirts. All I want is a white shirt that long enough to visible at the bottom of sweaters, have sleeves that poke out of the end of sweater sleeves, and is made of a fabric that is not too thin and see-through. Not much to ask really is it?

Well apparently, it is. I have several white shirts in my wardrobe, some of them tall fitting, some of them not, and all of them have one of the qualities I’m looking for, but none of them are the One. I did have the One, the Holy Grail shirt. It was from the Gap and was perfect – thick cotton with a little stretch, a great length in the body and super long sleeves as they were meant to turn back with cufflinks. But what did I do? Around 18 months ago a duster got mixed up with my white washing and the Gap shirt (along with everything else white in the load) got dyed pale yellow. Not attractive.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago when I spotted the Anne white shirt in the new Long Tall Sally catalogue:

Do you see how the model has the sleeves folded back over the jacket? This must mean the sleeves are long, right?

Right.

I bought the shirt and I have just tried it on. It’s fabulous! The fit on the body is perfect and the sleeves are so long that they cover part of my hands. I was wearing a bright blue tank underneath when I tried it on and I could hardly tell, the fabric is of such good quality. I will definitely be planning lots of outfits around a white shirt!

Reader Mail: New Look Shoes

I have had several questions from international readers recently regarding New Look shoes.

As New Look do not ship overseas your best bet for getting hold of some is through the British eBay site – www.eBay.co.uk
There is always a huge variety of styles and sizes available, often at bargain basement prices as the shoes were not that expensive to start with. Many of the shoes available will be new or hardly worn and many sellers will ship internationally.

Latest Long Tall Sally Purchases

I am loving so much of the new season collection at Long Tall Sally that when they sent me a free shipping code with the reissue of the latest catalogue, I couldn’t resist ordering a few more items.
White shirt

Red top

And I have this purple tank sweater on order still, it had a 4 week wait on it when I ordered it.

Outfit: Cold, Wet & Rainy Friday

It was 8 degrees when I passed the building with the outdoor thermometer on my way to work this morning. It is raining, it is foggy. It’s still September, right?

Grey polo neck sweater – Long Tall Sally
Jeans – Topshop Tall
Green suede boots – River Island

Total Est. Cost £55

Style Icon: Jennifer Cavalleri in 'Love Story'

I couldn't find as many pictures as I would have liked, but this girl had some great coats!

Autumn Has Set In

Much as I love autumn and winter – for the clothes, for anticipation of Halloween, Bonfire Night and then the build up to Christmas – these seasons have their downside. Namely, the chilly factor. I am cold all the time. No really, I am. It is only September 4th and yet this is the second day running that I have spent being cold. It’s the fault of my office building I think but no one else’s nails are turning purple like mine did yesterday and I can see them starting to go that way again today. It may still be warm in the south of England (Kate was in shorts yesterday) but up here in the Frozen North, we already have a wind chill factor to contend with, not to mention torrential rain every couple of hours or so. It’s such fun. Anyway, I had previously considered the first week of September a bit early for wearing a polo neck (roll neck) sweater, but yesterday it seemed like an excellent idea. I resisted again today but as I am still cold, I am planning an outfit for tomorrow that incorporates one. You watch, the sun will put in an appearance and it will be warm tomorrow now I’ve said that!

Eye Make Up

I never used to think of myself as being into make up really. Hell, I didn’t even start wearing mascara until after I left university. However, in the past year or so my collection has increased dramatically (that could have something to do with me moving to a place that has a huge Boots store just up the road) and I have become much more adventurous. Eye liner, shadow, mascara, I love it all! And then last week I got an eye infection. My whole eyelid swelled up, I was on antibiotic ointment and I couldn’t wear eye makeup until it was better. I didn’t think this would affect me particularly, but it did. I felt I hadn’t quite finished getting ready on a morning, and there was not way of glamming up subtly for an evening meal out or a trip to the pub.
I finished the course of ointment on Monday, left it another day then yesterday, I tentatively applied mascara to my lower lashes and slicked on some eyeliner underneath my eyes. And what a difference it makes! I look in the mirror and I have eyes again! I feel feminine and that my look is ‘finished’. I think it is interesting how something that I never gave much thought to for so many years could affect me in such a way. Shallow as it may sound, I really missed my eye make up and will be glad when I am able to wear it just as I want again.

Outfit: Team Colours

Jamie over at Cute on the Cheap is running a challenge for September where you wear the colours of your favourite football team. Now I don’t support football really, I’ll watch when England are playing (assuming they manage to qualify for the next big competition that is!) but other than that, not so much. What I do like though is Rugby League and my local team and the one I follow is Leeds Rhinos. Their colours are blue, yellow and white so that is the combination I’ve gone for today. Coincidentally, Leeds United’s (football/soccer team) colours are pretty much the same so I’m fulfilling all parts of the challenge – my favourite team and my home team colours.

Blue sweater – Tall Girls
White tank (visible at shoulders) – Topshop
Jeans – Gap
Yellow wedges – Priceless Shoes
Black belt – ASOS

Total Est. Cost £45.50

Outfit: Grey Wednesday

The sun is shining again this morning but if yesterday was anything to go by, it will be raining by mid-afternoon. Despite that, I went for the grey faux suede shoes as I know I won’t be walking far outside today. There’s plenty of time for wearing boots over the next few months. If I go for a walk at dinnertime (which I will if it’s still fine) then I’ll switch to flats.

Grey ¾ sleeve sweater – Ethel Austin
White t – New Look Tall
Jeans – Zara
Grey faux suede shoes – New Look (charity shop)
Silver belt – Primark

Total Est. Cost £54

Outfit: Suited Tuesday

Menswear is a big trend this season and the easiest way to update your existing suit is to put a waistcoat with it. I think this is a great idea for the office because the waistcoat still provides structure to the suit when the jacket is removed. I wanted to try this look incorporating a big scarf at the neck for interest and also for warmth on a chilly morning.

Black jacket – Long Tall Sally
Black trousers – Long Tall Sally
Black waistcoat – Next Tall
Blue sweater – Florence + Fred at Tesco
Blue patent shoes – New Look
Blue silk scarf – Accessorize

Total Est. Cost £132

Outfit: Monday Night Choir Practice

It was the first choir practice of the new season last night. We used to rehearse in a very cold church but that is having renovation work at the moment and so we have moved to a more modern church which is a little warmer. I just switched my dress for a pair of jeans for a more casual evening outfit.

Blue cardi – Ethel Austin
Black tank – Cherokee @ Tesco
Jeans – Dorothy Perkins Tall
Red shoes – Next
Red belt – Next
Red bangles – Primark
Red necklace – Claire’s

Total Est. Cost £51

Reader Mail: Gok’s Fashion Fix

Reader Simone emailed me with this query:

Hi

I saw a belt on Gok’s Fashion, I think it was the red carpet episode. The model was wearing a long flowing dress and he put a big belt, a black one. I think he put silver or gold material in the inside of the belt and I so, so want to find out where he bought the belt. Please help as I’m going to a wedding and would love that belt.

help
help

Simone

Hi Simone
I think this is the one you're referring to:

The belt is £35 from Warehouse and appears to only be available in dark red and stone now. Good luck with the wedding and glad I could help!
Shoegal

This Week I Will Be Mostly…

…wearing my new coat
…reading ‘Fashion Babylon’ by Imogen Edwards-Jones
…watching Sex & the City DVDs
…listening to the Mamma Mia
…eating whatever’s in the freezer
…shopping on eBay

Outfit: September!

It’s the start of autumn, my favourite season! So to celebrate I put on my new coat this morning. It wasn’t particularly cold out but then it wasn’t that warm either so a short sleeve coat was the perfect option.

Black & blue dress – Dorothy Perkins Tall
Blue cardi – Ethel Austin
Black tank – Cherokee @ Tesco
Red shoes – Next
Red necklace – Claire’s
Red bangles – Primark
Black & blue coat – Vila (Great Clothes)
Red bag – Dorothy Perkins

Total Est. Cost (including coat & bag) £101