Merry Chr-Issa-mas everyone!

Christmas day and I was up at 5.40. But I certainly wasn't planning my outfit or calming down over-excited children (my gorgeous DDs at the grand old ages of 14 and 15 stumbled down in their onesies at 9am), oh no, I was up before the larks partly because my mouth was parched from a little too much celebrating the night before and partly because I was having my usual stress about whether my Aga would stay hot all day, or whether it would decide to cool down and leave me with a bloody turkey and soggy roasties.

So after a couple of hours shuffling the bird between roasting and simmering ovens, making giblet stock and poking pressies under the Christmas tree I decided to pull on a selection of presents from Christmases past. My Issa dress (much beloved by the Middleton gels) was from my parents last year. It's the perfect shape for Christmas day, sooooo comfy and with cunning twisty draping around the midriff to hide any post prandial...ahem...bulge. With it I wore my classic midi-heel (no painful bunions in the kitchen for me) Louboutin boots, a gift from DH many years ago and later on I was lucky enough to be able to accessorise it with a gorgeous Gill Clements necklace from my lovely brother and his wife, a fab sparkly Anya Hindmarch clutch from DH and of course a glass of bubbly. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

No I didn't have my lips pumped up for Xmas...just a dodgy photo and some rather smudged lippy!

Dress; Issa
Boots: Louboutin
Necklace: Gill Clements
Bag: Anya Hindmarch

Same style Issa dress on the sale at Flannels

Similar sparkly clutch from Anya Hindmarch now on the sale here

Anglomaniac

I have a hankering for a Vivienne Westwood black jersey dress. The sort with complicated bits of ruching, draping and asymmetry. I've been obsessively stalking a few online and waiting for the sales to start but they never seem to be reduced, or if they are, they're only available in two sizes...ginormous and miniscule.

While I was impatiently waiting for the perfect Westwood LBD to turn up, I managed to absent-mindedly buy a bargainous one on Ebay, it was late at night and I just clicked without really thinking. When it arrived it seemed quite a lot smaller and significantly shorter than I'd imagined (one of the few times I've been rather grateful for my little legs.)  I suspect it will probably find its eventual home in DD's wardrobe but for a pre-Xmas night out I thought I'd give it a try.

Dress: Anglomania from E-Bay
Shoes: Kurt Geiger from Shoeaholics
Blue and gold bracelets: New Look

Promotional picture that shows the draping better than in my dodgy photo.

I added my faux fur from Ark to keep off the chill

Dahlia dress from My-Wardrobe.com and Selfridges 

Force dress in metallic midnight.

I think I'll keep on stalking the others though!

Red wine and a red dress

Ahhhhhhhhhh :)

The family have all gone home after a wonderful Christmas full of absurd amounts of food, wine and laughter. Time to upload all my pictures and catch up on blogging to hit the 50 outfit target I set myself back in November (the cleaning can definitely wait a while).

Surprisingly I did manage to stagger to Christmas without having to repeat or resort to dressing up my pyjamas with a few fabulous accessories. Unsurprisingly, rather a lot of the photos are a little blurry and a bit the worse for wear, rather like their subject!

So, firstly, the red dress. Is there anything more Christmassy? I had seen a wonderful photo of Dita Von Teese looking fabulous (as ever) in a red jersey dress and I tried to emulate her with touches of animal print, red lips and dark glasses- but it didn't seem right for the stormy Yorkshire weather and I felt like I was off to a fancy-dress party. Black tights and boots made it more wearable and the red lips and black fur scarf added just a little dash of Dita-ish vintage glamour!

Above: Dita looking gorgeous
Below: Me looking rather ridiculous!

Dress: Diane Von Furstenburg (old)
Glasses: Chanel
Bag: Louis Vuitton (Very old hand me down from Lovely MIL)
Shoes: Barratt from EBay
Tights: Seamed glossies from Pretty Polly

Dress: DVF
Ankle boots- Kurt Geiger from Shoeaholics

Scarf: Topshop (this season)

Christmas and colours

A quick look at my pictures and I realised that I look a bit more alive in red, is it my imagination or could it possibly be that the colour analyst all those years ago was right? I pulled out my dusty book of swatches and on the cover it said that scarlet and forest green are two of my best colours. I was duly inspired to find something in green for Christmas and found a jersey dress with leather detailing by Patrizia Pepe from Flannels (20% off when I got it, now down to £95.) Now,  it's rather tight and unforgiving but I've been working bloomin' hard to get into shape on the fantastic Mumsnet low carb bootcamp, so with some serious shape-wear underneath (thanks to M&S) it was perfect for dinner out before the serious Christmas eating has started! In the New Year I think I may dress it down with chunky boots, scarf and leather jacket

Dress: Flannels
Boots: Kurt Geiger from Shoeaholics
Necklace: E Bay

Going dotty!

Confession time. The title may well refer to my spotty stockings but when it comes to fashion, at the moment I am genuinely losing it. The relentless, constant and unremitting rain means that the only appropriate outfit is a kagoule, waterproof trews and wellies. No, strike that,  I really need to become Mrs Noah and build a bloomin' ark!

So, with the biblical weather and the Christmas frenzy, I've fallen just a teensy bit behind on my pictures. With five days to go I have to dig out at least five more outfits to fulfil my challenge. Fortunately I have just bought my absolutely final pressie, so the pressure is off (apart from the supermarket shop, wrapping and cooking of course!) It's time to stop stressing and start celebrating.

Today, my outfit was as dark as the clouds- out came a black polo and jeans but I added some spotty tights and midi heels to introduce a little interest a la crazystylelove. And over the top... a mac of course!

Tights: Primark
Shoes: Gucci ( very old)

Polo: H&M (this season)
Jeans: Gok at Sainsbury
Tights: Primark
Shoes: Gucci (old)

Trench: Whistles

Spotty ankles

Inspiration courtesy of Crazystylelove.com

Faux fur and jewels

I was checking out 'My Daily Style' on stylelovely.com, which is full of fabulously leggy young things looking unutterably gorgeous in everything. So, it can be inspiring but also profoundly depressing for women of a certain age! One of this week's posts featured faux furs, dressed down to look effortlessly casual but stylish with jeans. Now effortlessly casual is not something that comes easily to me, fortunately big DD was there to boss me around  guide me (and of course to lend me her Topshop speckled T-shirt, a fair swap for a loan of my Anglomania jersey dress over Christmas!)

So I wore my Zara jeans with a slouchy T-shirt and my Faux fur from Ark (24% off today with the code 24DAY) and channeling another picture from Emma Wornout's Pinterest board, I added some bling with a necklace from Accessorize. A very different look for me...but I kind of like it!

Style inspiration from stylelovely.com

Jeans: Zara
Boots: Kurt Geiger from Shoeaholics
Coat: Ark
Tshirt: Topshop (old)
Necklace: Accessorize (this season)

Black and white and red all over

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas. Our tree's up and the decorations have been scattered around the house with gay abandon, we even had a DIY German Christmas market experience at home tonight (it was too cold, wet and miserable to face the real one) with Bratwurst and Gluhwein in front of the fire.

With all the festive spirit, it just didn't seem right to dress in dull monochrome so I added some splashes of red. I think you've all seen more than enough of my scarlet coat, so instead I rediscovered an Anthropologie number from a few years ago. It has great mismatched buttons in red and white and I added a red necklace, bag and nails...a bit matchy, matchy but hey...It's Christmas!

Coat: Anthropologie (old)
Bag: Lulu Guiness
Boots: Moda in Pelle
White shirt: Zara
Black cashmere jumper (I said it was cold, I needed layers!): Uniqlo
Black jeans: Gok at Sainsbury

Necklace (is this a statement necklace or is it too small?): Ebay