A bad girl's guide to buying - part one

When I embarked on my style challenge it was with the knowledge of having a budget of only £100 a month. I was extremely joyful when out of my beret I pulled the designer category.

In my head it gave me exciting options to recreate looks and really work my wardrobe well. At first I felt the opportunities were endless because if you look factually at the range of options to buy designer then The Outnet, eBay, TK Maxx and charity shops plus car boot sales then you can do it all within a reasonable budget.

At first I was flush with success, a Valentino skirt, (The Outnet) a Calvin Klein dress and a Pringle jumper (TK Maxx). All 3 have been wonderful and yes I will get round to posting 5 ways to wear one skirt but I'm enlisting a photographer for the shoot as it requires more than bedroom posing!

Then of course I fell off the wagon with a mad frenzy on one Saturday in late January in the high street stores. It was like being let lose in a sweetie shop. I got completely carried away but I did buy a blouse from H&M which is a winner, a pleated skirt from Topshop which I love but if I'm honest it is rubbish quality and won't last 2 minutes, plus some sale shoes for £14 in Zara which I have worn as going out shoes three times now and I love them.

After that I abandoned all attempts to stick to the challenge, it seemed utterly pointless but then when bad girl's fall they do it big style! I did buy a top from Zara which then was returned because the material was damaged and I hadn't noticed. It was £39.99 so it had to go back. You can't wear something once, realise it is damaged and then think it is ok not to return the item. Luckily Zara were marvellous and completely agreed with me.

So now I'm back to re-evaluating my buying strategy. I always have a plan. Styling has made me ultra organised and I plan outfits, how my wardrobe works and what to buy and why.

Suddenly as I wave bye bye to styling, not only do I feel a huge weight off my shoulders regarding the incompatibility of the work with my parental responsibilities, I feel quite liberated in terms of what to buy and why.

I feel as if I'm going to be dressing purely for me. Which sounds silly as I've always worn what I like but I've equally felt the pressure to exude a notion of what people are buying off me and have dressed accordingly.

I'm good at putting on a performance with my selection of clothes and I thoroughly enjoy working a look but now I'm going to be buying purely for pleasure. It is a different angle for selecting and buying.

I will reveal as I buy...

Last night & Day 2 Capsule Wardrobe

Ah Mr MDS and I had such fun last night, so much so petit garcon had to don his Buzz Lightyear dressing gown and join in with 'your valentine meal'. I forgot to take a photo of the wonderful heart shaped environmentally friendly Chinese lantern we let off in to the night.

I know many have concerns about the commercially contrived nature of such a festive occasion but I love any excuse to have a party in the house even if only for two. And in reality as long as you stay at home then the money spent creates a pleasurable experience. I've never forgotten the time Mr MDS and I had been skiing and went out for a Valentine's meal as he'd thoughtfully booked it before we went away. It involved seeing people you'd rather not, many looking quite miserable and whilst you didn't have to do the washing up, it did mean you got subjected to an accordion player, Mr MDS's face was a picture.

Last night I caved in to the usual, a steak. I did lay the table which is my favourite bit.

the arrival of the steak, I made the broccoli and red onion salad

the arrival of the peppercorn sauce (au poivre) for the steak

Loved the Lanson on a school night I was so squiffy

the little plate for the petit garcon who polished off his small portions at the other end of the table whilst chatting away

dessert was homemade almond & orange muffin

I was a softie & bought Mr MDS a cashmere West Ham scarf whilst I'm still earning money

The Tiffany candlestick that were a wedding present

I was rather sluggish this morning after drinking the night before but onwards and upwards with the capsule wardrobe challenge. So today I channelled Bridget Wintour (Anna's naughty hopeless younger sister, of course she doesn't exist anywhere but in my head!). Bridget takes the primness of the dress formula so beloved by La Wintour and makes it more as if Patricia Field had got hold of her.

Bridget felt she really needed braces but made do with the belt. The light grey between boot and skirt is thigh high socks.

The belt is navy and I like how this camera angle makes my waist and hips look smaller, I'm thinking this is the new all out action pose!

Today's Look from Capsule Wardrobe Challenge

This is today's look from my selection of clothes for the 4th Annual Capsule Wardrobe Challenge.
My selected items are in the proceeding post.

I had a meeting in Wimbledon Village this morning so selected to wear jeans, t-shirt and cardigan. It is still pretty cold out even with the sun shining, brrr, wish this long winter would end. I did spy some catkins today so spring can't be far away!!




I back combed a section of my hair to create an 'up do' bit and what you cannot see is that there is a ponytail at the back. I did try to capture this on camera but it was nigh on impossible.

Capsule Wardrobe Challenge

The fourth annual capsule wardrobe challenge is under way today! The challenge and rules are set by Jane of The Small Fabric of My Life

The rules are simple.
Choose ten items of clothing from your wardrobe and mix and match them for five days between Monday February 14th and Friday February 18th.
You can have any combination of shoes, dresses, skirts, tops and jackets as long as it adds up to ten individual items.
You are also allowed five accessories which include jewellery, scarves, bag, belts etc.
Underwear and hosiery do not come under the ten items and five accessories!
If you are joining the challenge please blog about it and if you want to appear in Jane's Capsule Wardrobe Challenge round-up the following week then please email your pics to workthatwardrobe@googlemail.com

Here are my 10 pieces and 5 accessories.

Garments
1. FC wide leg jeans (2009)
2. Isabella Oliver essential black pencil skirt 365 (2011 - sale but still available out of sale now)
3. See by Chloe jacket (2010)
4. H&M blouse (2011 but first drop so all gone now)
5. Zara polka dot top (2011 current drop this season)
6. Zara cardigan (2008)
7. Isabella Oliver 365 grey dress (2010 and still available )
8. Elizabeth Emanual fashion show tee (free)
9. Zara shoes (2011 - sale)
10. M&S boots (2003)

Accessories
11. Bag Mulberry Beatrice (2008)
12. Belt LK Bennett (2009)
13. Pashmina (2000)
14. Necklace Tophsop (2011)
15. Cocktail ring Topshop (2010)

Items: 6, 1, 14, 7, 2, 4 & 5

Items: 8, 13 & 3

Items: 11,12, 10, 15 & 9

I confess

It all went wrong. My smug satisfaction, being on track all culminated in a seismic fall. There are no admissions at the Priory yet for blogging dysfunction. I blame it all on the pleated skirt. I just got carried away in my head with newness and things. Then a dear friend posted this in my facebook comments page - rules are meant to be broken you know......and life is forever changing, which is why us humans are so adaptable......so review your decision and see if it is still valid, if yes, then you are on the right track, but personally, being too s...trict with anything only makes life more difficult! lol! xxxPS lovely skirt and you will look fab in it. x

So seed planted but my good voice kept me in check... and then I meet the lovely Sharon Rose of MyStyle, Thrifting, Fashion and Me.. for our planned lunch at the cafe in Harvey Nicks. Well we had a good old natter and a catch up on all things.

Sharon

Me - looking quite serious but actually the picture below is more like the day we had, lots of laughs.

Then after our nosh up we went to Topshop! To try on the pleated skirt!!
On route to my downfall we stopped to admire my high street pick of the week. The Sharon insisted I tried on the pleated skirt. Of which there were none available - phew! Yet my very own Mrs Doyle (Father Ted) with her go on attitude found the black pleated skirt in the petite range. Well you can guess what happened next - actually all hell broke lose and I tried on a few things and saw lots to like. Sharon and I had such fun in the changing rooms with our flowing wide leg trousers and floppy seventies hats. A pleated skirt, then a H&M chiffon blouse later we also popped into Zara. All I can say is I'm lucky I didn't have any more funds as it was like a sweetie shop in there too! I did complete the look with a lucky find of shoes on sale at £14 down from £65. We also spotted a leopard print dress for Mrs Fab but the picture I took didn't save to my iphone.

The bargain Zara shoes with hidden platform and the beautiful addition of a padded insole bit for the ball of your feet


It felt proper to put the bag on the head in a reverse of Victoria Becham's ad for Marc Jacobs and yes I did the walk of shame in it.

The H&M blouse

The Zara shoe - you can just spy the padded bit, so comfy!

The complete look delivered aka WendyB style without the winning red lippy smile mainly because Mr MDS is so dreadful at taking photos. Oh and those bags next to my foot are old ones which I found stuffed in a draw, so I was clearing up as well as posing



And the wonderful Sharon Rose brought me a booty bag from all her car booting and charity shops. A canvas Temperley had a white Jil Sander shirt, a necklace which I was wearing in earlier Harvey Nicks photos, a stripy tee, a pretty blue Boden top, (yes we had the Boden conversation but it is a top top for holidays) a wide studded belt, a faux leopard print stole and a Prada catalogue. It was a lovely thoughtful gift and it was so nice for me to actually shop and have fun with someone rather than it being work.

I think I'm stuffed on my style challenge now...

Blast from the past

It was a lovely surprise to receive a comment from The Small Fabric of My Life as she has been dutifully pursuing her retraining as a teacher. You see it is not just me who goes for something different!

Anyway Jane reminded me of my favourite event the Capsule Wardrobe Challenge. For those of you uninitiated in this annual event the challenge is to choose ten items of clothing from your wardrobe and mix and match them for five days between Monday February 14th and Friday February 18th. You can have any combination of shoes, dresses, skirts, tops and jackets as long as it adds up to ten individual items. You are also allowed five accessories which include jewellery, scarves, bag, belts etc. Underwear and hosiery do not come under the ten items and five accessories!

If you are up for it then please blog about it and if you want to appear in The Small Fabric of My Life's Capsule Wardrobe Challenge round-up the following week then please email your pics to workthatwardrobe@googlemail.com.

Go on...

Here are a couple of pics from bygone years. I give you October 2009




Old Wallis strapless dress, Gap stripy long sleeve tee (I have just killed it by wearing it nonstop for 4 years), LK Bennett belt and I also had an H&M black jacket. I wore the same shoes (old boots) all week.



Gap grey cashmere t-shirt, H&M white shirt, H&M sequin leggings, Topshop jade green coin necklace, Accessorise scarf, Toast bag and very old ankle boots.

Style Challenge Update

On November 16th 2010 I entered in to my year long style challenge. In short I am only allowed to buy designer goods. This is quite hard because you need a lot of money for only designer goods and of course I don't. Also it has saved me a lot of frittering on high street goods and thereby quite a bit of money. You know that £16.99 H&M item you justify on so many levels...

I have limited myself to a budget of £100 a month which amounts to £1,200 per annum. I am a stylist (though not for much longer way hay) and I do top up my allowance by selling items on ebay and thereby indulge in neutral shopping. I also, and this is occasionally get free items. One year a PR company insisted I choose some Falke socks from their supply. This was not only very handy but turned my head as Falke socks and tights are lovely. Apart from being given a Viktor & Rolf dress once, I don't get biggies or that much for free. I have been loaned items which is nice.

The allowance has to work hard but I was caught up in an endless cycle of buy, sell, buy, sell and worse over it! I began to find the high street items too costly for the quality of the garment. I knew quality is key but even so called quality brands weren't living up to the hype.

So far so good. I have bought three items, a Valentino skirt from the Outnet for £136.


A Calvin Klein dress for £49 from TK Maxx



And a Pringle jumper again from TK Maxx for £39.


Over a three month period I have spent £224 and have £76 left over which goes back into paying off the MA debts. I will wear the jumper to death over the spring and summer. I haven't felt able to wear it yet as it is so bright I might even give myself a fright.

It is really nice to be under budget and also not to have bought anything from the high street whatsoever. Having stepped away I look at clothes more dispassionately as I am choosing personal style and things I love over what is in. I love to know what is in as I think you can emulate it without actually needing anything new. I feel impressed with my sticking to budget and hope to keep up the good work. I know I could be doing better so next month I will only look for designer items in charity shops, saving me even more money.

How could I deKlein

I had no intention of spending a penny and we are not talking incontinence pants here. I was busy being out in the fresh air, walking and thinking of other matters and then I remembered I needed to get one of my sisters a photo frame.

I popped into TK Maxx and despite my best endeavours as I walked past the clothes to the furnishing section, my beady little eye spied in amongst the total afternoon mess a lovely black dress by Calvin Klein. Perfect. As it was allowed under my style challenge I thought I would try it on.

The photo doesn't show very well the pleated waist detail which creates a lovely silhouette

Then I suddenly had an urge to look at knitwear, where upon I found lots of Pringle jumpers. I grabbed a bright acid yellow one and ran to the changing rooms not daring to look at another garment.

Of course my bad luck (not wishing to spend anything) continued as both items fitted and were such bargains they had to come home with me. Of course I haven't veered off my style challenge and I have two lovely quality items at a fraction of their price. However it is strange how once you get used to not buying things you are reluctant to part with folding.

Bright & cheery plus v on trend for S/S 2011

Something I threw...OFF

No this is not a post where Mrs MDS reveals to all she has been secretly working as a stripper. I was going to say burlesque dancer but that felt all coy and stripper seems to be a more factual term. I believe there is some debate currently regarding burlesque in respect of is it a tantalising art form or merely porn. Do I look bovvered? Seriously how contrive can 'trending' be at times. Oh look there is a film on burlesque coming out ...lets stimulate cultural debate.. Argh, this sort of thing drives me mad.

Anyway back to not being a stripper. No really I don't have a part time job as a stripper but I am in off with my clothes mode!

I've also mainly failed to put many on, in the sense that my wardrobe remains untouched and I'm wearing what can only be described as a gardener come ski instructor look. My inability to 'dress up' or properly as I think of it is due to having to walk and look after a small dog and mainly in snowy conditions. One night I went out with a dog on lead in one hand and a child on a sledge in the other. Goodness only knows what I pulled out of the hat, scarf and glove basket but I cared not one iota what I looked like!





What with snow and now just ice, working on projects at home and a dog to take care of, I really had times to get to grips with my wardrobe and my style. Because I'm always thinking of others, thinking of creative solutions and writing about fashion I rarely get time for me. Recently I got to dress up at Isabella Oliver and at Penny Dreadful Vintage's tea party and after writing the Life Laundry series of posts which I didn't really finish, I got motivated.

I've been shedding the old, the unglamorous and anything which doesn't have the wow factor. I did lots of listings on ebay of which two items raised money for Sister Wolf of which you can read the reasons why here and here. I've got a pile of things for a car boot sale as I'm officially over selling on ebay! I thought I'd do a stall with everything for a pound so I could clear it all. Some items have already gone to charity and anything very worn has been donated to the textile collectors who sell the items to raise more money for varies causes. I feel like this has been an ongoing project for a year or more and in truth it has. But like all projects you go through a concept, then initiation phase before you finally reach completion. It has been well worth doing and an end of era in some respects. The end of quantity, trends and hero pieces ( I still loath that terminology) and the beginning of quality, loved pieces and truly individual style. I would like to think that Make Do Style has contributed in part over the last 3 years to the rejection of trend driven must have pieces. I fully realise I'm not alone in this view and it is nice to see other have a change of direction too - see this post from Fashion Pearls of Wisdom

I'm nearly one month into my style challenge and I have had a few moments of wanting to waver but so far all is going well.

As I throw off my shackles of old and enter into a new year (and a new decade!) I will get back to sharing my outfits and continue to dispense style advice, especially once I've lost the bag lady look and this flipping freezing weather.

Fashion Maths and Fate

Late yesterday afternoon I finished my wardrobe sort out and purge. It left me requiring a skirt. If I'm honest I really do/did have my heart set on the Valentino for Gap one at £69.95. I love Valentino and thought it would be a good way to get some but I also felt it was breaking my year long challenge. Technically it is only a designer collaboration and Gap is high street. Then I thought could I really be bothered to haul myself to Dover Street Market first thing Saturday morning - as at least Dover Street Market isn't a high st retailer!

Bit by bit I managed to convince myself that it would be a bad idea and would be breaking my challenge. I'm sure if I had put it to the public you would have voted me OFF, mind you Wagner keeps staying on X Factor despite abominable performances.

My next step was to check out skirts on Net A Porter and Matches. I'd looked at My-wardrobe the day before. Nothing grabbed me in my price range. Then I thought I'd look on the Outnet. I'd tortured myself earlier with a Valentino red dress. I filtered my search to skirts... you know where this is going don't you ... and I stumbled upon an f****** Valentino, in my size with 80% off and in black at the length I wanted and the level of detail I wanted too. I quickly checked my bank balance and worked out the math.

Then I bloody well went for it!



And here is my new baby to be. At £136 down from £680 I'm in Valentino heaven. It hasn't arrived yet but fingers crossed it will be perfect. Okay it is double the price of the Valentino Gap one but there the comparison ends. At unit cost per wear it will pay for itself in 12 months. Oh the joy of it!

The Style Challenge

For the next year I'm going large with the longest style challenge I've undertaken. It is my birthday next week so instead of saddling myself with a new years resolution which involved deprivation, I decided to set a year's style challenge.

Based on the X Factor I put 4 categories into a hat

Designer
High Street
Secondhand
Home made

I didn't have a mentor in mind but the words of my favourite dispenser of fashion wit, namely Diana Veerland and also my default advisor Joan Collins were rolling around in my head so I was very happy when I got the designer category.* I would have been equally happy with home made as there is a particular dress with some Liberty print material I am dying to make. I might count that in or is it cheating? I'm sure Liberty counts as designer.

The rational of a category is to focus you in one area and not allow you too much choice. The beauty of the designer category is the price limits ones options but I can look on ebay, charity shops and car boots as well as the Outnet and others.

I think not being able to buy anything on the high street will stop me buying fast fashion or trend fixes. I can be quite a magpie at times.

My aim is only to buy things I truly love and can pay cash for. No more credit card nonsense. Last year I managed about 16 weeks of no shopping which greatly helped towards paying back my master's loan and as I have another 15 months to go on paying it all back I want to go all out.

If I didn't work as a stylist I would go cold turkey but it might stress me out! Today was the last day of freedom and from next week I'm on the challenge... it will be interesting and I'm determined to 'nail it'. I will own this category!


* The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it. Diana Veerland & If life throws you a lemon - make lemonade. Joan Collins

You threw something on!

There have been lots of fabulous comments regarding the 'Something I Threw On' from your suggestion. With a simple suggestion inspiring many an effort. To date two photos have been submitted and both Cristina from ShoeTease and Margaret from Penny Dreadful Vintage.





Cristina is wearing her oh-too-tight, black silk-satin Marciano dress with a Jacob lace top that until now has always been reluctant to don. She also thought her pearls and JLo platforms were a but much for daily wear, so she threw those on too!

Margaret grabbed a 50s floral dress that she never seems to find the right occasion to wear and added a chunky Aran sweater with a tooled leather belt and gorgeous green canvas courts. In lieu of not owning any fashion editor ankle socks, Margaret raided her Scottish boyfirends formal wear so added some fabulous knee high woollen kilt socks.

I love that both looks have been interpreted with individual flair and not a single penny/cent was spent in the process...