September = New Wardrobe

Even though this time of year means the final bank holiday is over, the nights are drawing in and the summer is coming to a close, September is definitely my favourite time of year.

It’s the biggest month in the fashion calendar whether you’re in New York, London or Leeds. You may have seen the award-winning documentary ‘The September Issue’ on TV last week staring the altogether terrifying Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Watching the mayhem unleash at Vogue towers demonstrates  just why it’s their biggest issue of the year and why this issue’s release is much anticipated  by fashionistas across the globe. The trends for the next 12 months are laid bare and everyone, especially retailers are poised to stock their shelves with the hottest looks.

Realistically, not everyone can afford the Louis Vitton, Marc Jacobs and Gucci fatigues that are splashed all over the pages of Vogue (although, if you’re feeling flush, all of these names are available in this here city of Leeds).  The trick is to flick through Vogue or Grazia and find similar pieces on the high street or at the myriad independent boutiques around town.

Always hot on the killer heels of the catwalk, Topshop have a trend guide here including the hotly tipped tartan and tweed look.  And the ASOS blog lists new must-have trends such as Camel coats, Pussy-bow blouses and leopard print.

These are all revivals of previous trends, so vintage and second hand are definitely options . There seems to be a lot of vintage shops popping up all over Leeds at the moment, particulalry in the new shopping hot spot Birds Yard. The Leeds Retail Therapy Awards have noticed this, so we’ve added the brand new category for Best Vintage to celebrate the arrival of new stores this year.

So, if you find a little oasis of vintage wonderment, please do spread the love and vote for them.

Don’t forget, there’s a vintage fair at Leeds University Union on 31st October (spooky). Plenty of bargains to be had particularly if you’re a student.

Good luck hunting and happy new warbrobe!

Annie

Shoeperb

They were a thing of beauty. If only she could walk in them.

Most girls (and many guys) have this problem, but I’m on the verge of an addiction. I absolutely cannot resist shoes. Yes,  it’s a cliche. I am a walking cliche. But at least I’m a walking cliche in beautiful shoes.

Now, I am a fan of feet fashion, but I don’t usually go this mad. I have been saving like crazy for an imminent trip to Tokyo and recently realised that I didn’t have the kit to look the part. I intend to sip tumblers of whiskey at the very bar that Bill Murray met Scarlett Johansson in ‘Lost in Translation’ in style.  And so to Briggate…

Admittedly, I went a little overboard (or more so than usual). I bought six pairs of shoes. SIX! If you think my shoe habits beggar belief, you should see how much my bill came to…

At the new Cath Kidston store in Leeds I bought:

• A pair of red spotty sandals for more shopping in Tokyo
• Some very cute cherry patterned pumps for subway hopping around the Japanese capital

Cost = £31 in total. Cheap as chips! And I got to nab some free fabric samples and shelter from the torrential rain whilst I was in there.

Feeling rather chuffed with my bargains, I tootled home only to find my boyfriend shopping for shoes on the Office website.

O-oh. Here comes trouble. So many cheap shoes in their sale. You can guess what’s next.  I bought:

• 2 pairs of gladiator sandals in black and aqua marine at £10 each (reduced from £35 and £40 respectively)
• 1 pair of suede peep toe heels in pink at £15 (reduced from £40)
• 1 pair of Blowfish flats in grey at £10 (reduced from £35)

Cost = £45 + £3.50 for postage (which my fella paid as he bought shoes too!)

So that’s £76 for 6 pairs of decent shoes. My bill should have cost a couple of hundred.

I may have no space left in my suitcase but boy, am I one smug shopper.

Annie

Lasy Fashion

It was brought to my attention how lazy fashion has become, when I ventured out in search of a frock for a swanky soiree I’m due to attend. What is with these high street shops and their celebration of the ‘I just rolled out of bed look’? I’m going to go out on a whim here and suggest that most of us would be quite horrified at the prospect of being confronted by our peers of equal standing before we’ve even tucked into our cornflakes. But if this has come to be the acceptable method of dress, then let’s just go the whole hog and rock ‘morning breath’ as a trendy, dental craze; gone are the times of the minty fresh whiff.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a maxi dress or a playsuit as much as the next catwalk informed coolster, but there’s a time and a place and it’s not at my great grandma’s 90th or my cousin’s bar mitzvah. Sometimes, a garment is needed of good stature and tailoring and you’ll be pushed to find it in today’s carefree climate. Topshop for instance, usually one of my favourite shopping haunts, has been taken over by oversized t-shirts in what seems to be some sort of clothing coup. Warehouse, a usually dependable and trusty friend in the world of formal dress, had nothing suitable to meet my needs.

This is not the first time said issue has arisen for me, being a student exposed to the alternate world carved by Jack Wills gilet and jogging bottom culture. Who in their right mind would fork out £60 plus for a pair of pants which are deliberately intended to make you look like an idle, ineffective sloth? The mind well and truly boggles when I think that I was probably scorned for turning up to lectures in a pair of well made and cleanly washed jeans. Just to remind you, jeans are the once popular item of clothing that has since been replaced by leggings and a pair of camel coloured space boots, also known as Uggs.

So to sum up, casual wear, like anything else, is great in moderation. However, it seems we all need to journey back to a time when we didn’t wear giant pillow cases in public, and we combed our hair and took part in other grooming related activities.

Head to Toe in Topman

To the Top...

Oh dear. So, let me get this right: white pumps, skinny jeans and nautical T with collar, not to mention a brown faux-leather jacket, all of which appears to have been inadvertently purchased from Topman. That’s not the sort of thing I should admit, obviously. It’s a strange feeling being revealed as the sort of high street whore that I clearly am, because, let’s face it, you can pick up an equivalent look in just about any Leeds indie out there, and there are plenty to choose from.

This is a new kind of fashion guilt which is clearly a predicament of the modern age: no longer are we required to just look good, but now we need to feel somewhat superior with our clothing decisions too. It’s the sort of attitude that says, “You just rifled through a H&M sale rack, whereas I acquired my locally sourced kafkan by bartering with a street seller in Kirkgate Market.” Topman gets a bad press, although I’m very aware that I’m within the last few years of actually being able to wear it. In fact, at weekends you wonder whose manning the creche, with kids running wild like they’re at a Jungle Bungle for the trendy. But notice how they quickly snap up the more underground trends of the boutiques, like those big collar sweats they had in their winter collection, which like many catwalk friendly items are gradually embraced into the mainstream. So, at 25, it’s still just about OK, but any later and it’s just embarassing.

Possible Suitors

I was approached by Real Radio the other day to discuss the fashion statements currently being made on the campaign trail by our three would-be leaders – Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg. Cameron looked positively presidential when he was in Leeds recently, mucking in and shaking hands with his sleeves rolled up, tie off with top button undone like he’d just returned from a particularly stressful chess match, revealing white shirts with no blazer. We think his team may be studying Obama quite closely.

Quiffy: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow?

He’s not the only one who’s been taking fashion cues from American, of course. Remember Tony Blair? Anyone? He was around a few years back? Do you remember that quickly assembled press conference held outside Number 10 when Leo was born, and he bandied out of the house with the sort of windswept grin and ruffled formality of a man who may have just possibly delivered the baby himself. I can picture Cameron doing the same thing, maybe heroically jumping in front of traffic to save an old lady on a bicycle in the process. Accusations of airbrushing won’t help Cameron with regards to his latest campaign posters, although kudos is due on his mini-quiff – which is hardly the sort of post-modern hair do that you’ll find Brown striking up in the run up to May 6^th. Although slowly creeping further up his forehead (that’s called a recession, surely?), the look is both contemporary and adaptable for a busy, 24 hour media roll call. Blair had a similar look, funnily enough.

I maybe sounded a bit too harsh when addressing our Great Leader, Gordon Brown, who I said “probably shouldn’t smile so much.” That’s unfair; he can’t help it that smiling seems to go against every muscle on his face, only for it to quickly disappear as soon as it’s arrived. Brown should stick to playing it serious; his wardrobe surely matches: office tailoring at its most monochrome, like a politician from the forties. This works, I guess, as there is a war on. I even saw him on telly wearing a blue tie. Tory colours, of course; does this instigate a break from the traditional standard issue colours? Maybe, yes. After all, when did you last see Cleggover brandishing a liberally bright yellow tie and pochette combination? I quite like Nick Clegg, but he’s starting to resemble a Geography supply teacher.

Of course, more attention is being paid towards the leader’s wives: SaBro, SamCam and The Other One. I read that a leading national fashion glossy is ringing each party head office every morning to find out what the three women are wearing. I quite like The Other One, who isn’t playing ball in the slightest and still going to work as per usual. And just so you know: her name is Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a Spanish catholic, who bizarrely resembles Cherie Blair. SamCam and SaBro are undergoing much bigger media onslaughts in rather inoffensive high street clothing, but if they really wanted to court some serious press attention, may we suggest a House of Gaga makeover like Beyonce in the video to ‘Telephone’? Or is that image just too much to comprehend?

Aire Apparel

You’re lucky we can stay at our desks to update the blog right now, since American Apparel opened on Briggate just last week! It took a while on 1st April – we’d been wandering nonchalantly past in the hope that it would have opened for months now, then the launch was delayed from 11am to about 2pm (they could hardly hold us back, I tell you) – but it’s a ruddy great addition to Leeds’ shopping scene. We hear that, as Urban Outfitters often does, the sweat-shop free, all American brand will be hosting in-store events with DJs and the like in the coming months. While we couldn’t accept the kind, if a little unexpected, offer of a job when their recruitment people spotted us on Briggate a few days ago, we’ll definitely be stocking up on their leggings, T-shirts and onesies, no problem!

Through the Looking Glass

Summer means specs!

How low will you go? OK, so these Aviators are only a snip at £5 from H&M, but bust out a pair of these at the summer festivals and you could have even your more astute contemporaries claiming other wise. “Ray-Bans?” they’ll ask. “Not quite, my friend. You’ll never guess.”

I’ve always taken a slightly skeptical approach to sunglasses – an item which you’re more than likely to leave on a sun lounger, complain to somebody that you’ve lost them, and then find them instantly with a slight crushing sound when you sit on them.

Purists may say otherwise, but for an item that seems as disposable as sunglasses (particularly if you’re planning a ‘staycation’ this summer, making the most of our ten minute spurts of sun shine), then the idea of forking out half your wage for these things is, frankly, silly. Should’ve gone to H&M, clearly.

Voting’s over!

We’ve had record numbers coming by the site and voting this year and everyone at the Retail Awards wants to say a big thank you to everyone that’s taken part.

This year’s awards promises to be the best yet, so book your tickets now!

Anyone need a new best friend?

I couldn’t help but notice that it’s a little on the chilly side today, but I’m looking on the positive side – finally I have an excuse to put together my new season wardrobe! First on my list is some new boots, and I’ve got my eyes firmly on some little brown booties from Urban Outfitters with laces and cute straps across the front. They’ll look fantastic with opaque tights under shorts this autumn. So, who’s offering to buy them for me? I’ll be your best friend…

Human picnic blanket

Checked shirts are brilliant – not just the staple of tree-felling types, they look great thrown on with a simple dress, knotted over a vest or tucked into high-waisted shorts, and I picked up a yellow-and-black gingham checked one for my collection today from H&M. My quest continues however to find the perfect red tartan checked shirt – because I for one certainly have no aversion to looking like a human picnic blanket.