Rodding Around The Christmas Tree

Dress - ASOS

Cardigan - Vintage Engelhorn

Belt - River Island

Boots - Bianco

I've been a little concerned over the last couple of weeks about my unsatisfactory levels of festive spirit this year.  I am usually annoying festive, yet lately I seem to be grumping around like I'm competing for the Scrooge of the Year 2012 title (and yep, that does exist, an official sport in the winter Olympics don'tcha know).  However, I can confirm without a shred of doubt that Christmas has finally arrived for me, no more false alarms.  I'm pretty sure I can thank an afternoon of loudly listening to Rod Stewart's Christmas album for this wonderful turn of events.  Thanks Rod - you've saved the day, yet again.

To support this new festive feeling, and make sure it doesn't run away, I decided to go for a quite festive colour scheme today.  Basically, just the red cardigan, but it is very red so I think that's enough.  I think I've talked about this piece before but in case you missed it, I picked up for a measly £5 in a sale at my favourite hometown vintage store in a one day only cashmere sale.  Yes, that's right, cashmere for five English pounds!  I used to neglect it a little as I didn't like the shape but I'm really enjoying it this winter.

Having decided that this cardigan simply had to be a feature of the day, it seemed a good opportunity to bring out this dress again that I ordered a few weeks ago for just £20 in the ASOS sale.  It is a little summery but I think the monochrome colouring and the pattern, that to me feels so quintessentially British, make it acceptable all year round and a perfect item to layer.  Wonderful.

Now I think about it, not a single item in this outfit was bought full price (with the exception of the tights but as they're Primark-via-mother I'm not sure that can exactly be deemed as an extravagance).  I bought the boots half price in Swedish store Bianco a few months ago and the belt, which is real leather, was a January sale bargain back in 2009 for just £7.  This actually isn't a very surprising realisation given that I pride myself on hunting down sale bargains.  

Speaking of bargains, I ordered myself a pair of the much coveted Office Nighthawk ankle boots for just £41.25 yesterday!  I wasn't sure that they were particularly "me" at first but I think they'll be good to toughen up my quite classic/feminine clothing choices.  I do love a bit of genre-clashing, after all.  If you want the same bargain, pop to the Office website NOW and use the promo code "LADIES25" at the checkout.  This code applies to any Office brand styles so it's the perfect time to order yourself a little Christmas present.

As I type this, I have yet another banana cake baking in the oven in preparation for a pot-luck dinner party I'm throwing with a few friends this evening.  I'm planning to jazz this old favourite up with some lemon cream cheese frosting.  I know this sounds like a strange combination but I have high hopes for it.  I'll almost certainly be bombarding you with pictures of everybody's offerings at some point in the week.

With merry Monday wishes,

Elise.

The Daily Bread #13 - Call The Midwife, Apparently

Dress - ASOS

Jumper - Lindex

Brogues - Unknown Swedish 

Today, my mother and cousin arrived for a weekend of festive fun in Sweden and since their arrival, they have done little except mock me for looking like an extra from recent BBC drama Call The Midwife.  Pssht.  Apparently it was the combination of jumper/collar, swingy mac and very sensible black brogues.  I'm not going to lie - I don't really find any of this particularly insulting.  Take me back to the fifties any day.

I must admit though, the shoes do look slightly like they were acquired via an orthopaedic prescription.  I bought them yesterday on a desperate hunt for anything flat-ish and lace up, after the contents of Big Foot's shoe collection was delivered on Wednesday.  I couldn't find anything that I loved and I wasn't really willing to part money for mediocre (either my student brain or my middle aged one finally engaging) so when I saw these reduced to 99sek, about £9, I thought they'd do as a filler shoe, until I fell in love again.  It got even better when I took them to the till and the sales assistant informed me that it was buy one, get one half price, and off I trotted to find a second pair.  I found a pair of quite nice black heels, also in the sale, so ended up with 698sek worth of shoes for 148sek which I'm not complaining about at all, even if they are more suited to the doctor's office...

I must stop rambling about the embarrassments of today's outfit though and please let's discuss the dress instead.  Jeez.  It came in the Big Foot parcel from ASOS and probably made up for my footwear disappointments.  I ordered it on a whim, as I saw it was reduced to £20 and I'm a big fan of toile style prints (as you can tell by duvet set featured here).  I was pretty chuffed when it came.  Whilst it's more of a summer dress, with a really exciting shape to the shoulder area, I also love it styled for autumn with a jumper like this, and I think the monochrome colouring stop it being too unseasonal.  It won extra brownie points because dresses never fit me properly - disproportionate boob:hip ratio, with the former coming out on top - but this does up all the way to the top without a single gape and also fits perfectly on my waist.  Bravo ASOS, bravo.

As predicted, today has been full of festive fun already.  We browsed the Christmas sections of pretty much every store in Gothenburg, wandered until dark in order to appreciate the lights and then had Glogg, a Swedish mulled wine type affair, with our risotto.  Beth and my mum have both fallen asleep now (they blame the early flight for this antisocial bedtime; I blame the Glogg) so I thought I'd type a little post for you.

Talking of Christmas, something which I won't stop doing until January, I received an email from Vicki (A Life of Geekery) this week containing details for bloggers Secret Santa which is VERY exciting.  Christmas really is a-coming, hoorah!

With good tidings and weekend wishes,

Elise.

P.S. After many occasions of having problems with no light, I took my pictures really early today and found there was too much.  Oops!

Inspired By... My Pap

Today is, or would have been, my Pap's 79th birthday.  Whilst I'm not at all into the whole furore of Facebook RIPs, and I'm pretty sure he would have been equally as appalled by them, I thought I'd pay tribute with a post of style inspired by him.  This isn't meant to be dreary in the slightest, so I'll apologise in advance if this serves as a miserable start to your Saturday.

My Pap was very particular with his dressing.  He couldn't abide a hair out of place, spending a great portion of his time picking fluff from our shoulders, offering to shine our shoes and smoothing our hair.  I remember appearing on my 18th birthday in a new cardigan, a multi-coloured oversized affair from Miss Selfridge, and him telling me, "I like that cardigan but I don't like that fluff" as it clung to every dark surface in the room.  

I think it's fair to say that my Pap didn't beat around the bush to preserve your feelings.  If you looked a mess, he'd tell you, and if you acted like a mess, he'd tell you even more.  When you did something well though, or you looked 'smart' (his word of choice for aesthetic compliments) he would be the first to tell you, and I think praise like that is worth a thousand times more than when it's coming at you for no good reason.

Outfit #1:

Trousers - Monki; Jumper - Mango; Shoes - ASOS; Belt - Topshop

For this outfit, I have embraced androgyny in its fullest and went for something my Pap would have actually worn.  He always brought out a new pair of corduroys for special occasions and this pair I scouted out in Monki a few days ago sprung to mind straight away.  He also would have really embraced the fact that the colours of both the jumper and the trousers are seen in the check detailing on the shoes, always being one for a bit of cohesion.  I added the belt in because I rarely leave the house without a belt and neither did he, but it's just occurred to me what uproar the different shades of leather of the shoes and belt would have caused.  Crikey.  I generally really like the 'Grandad' feeling of this whole outfit and I think it'd be perfect for a crisp winter day, paired with a Mac and a home knitted scarf.

Outfit #2:

Dress - Love at Topshop; Coat - River Island; Boots - Missguided; Hat - French Connection

I chose here the kind of outfit my Pap would always have something nice to say about -  prim, put together, smart.  I'd turn up to a family meal in something like this, hair in a bun and shoes shined, and you know he'd say something nice.  I specifically chose this dress not only because I've been lusting after it for a while now, but because it's by Love and I think his favourite thing I ever owned was a floral dress from Love.  I've paired it with this coat because, well, warmth first and the hat because he always loved me in a hat.  I've gained this reputation amongst my family as being the one who does hats, and that's not a label I'm going to shirk because I bloody love them.  Whilst I do like this outfit anyway, for me the thing that made it particularly Pap-esque was the colour coordination between the floral design, hat and coat and the black dress background with the black boots.  Of course, opaque black tights will also feature in this outfit, but I didn't think you need to see a picture of those.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe this post is a bit weird but I just woke up this morning with some inspiration for it.  One of my favourite things about fashion is how we draw inspiration from everywhere, from the strangest of people and the unlikeliest of locations.  All the things my lovely old Pap loved in terms of how we dressed, I steered clear of for so long, turning my nose up at any kind of colour coordination, at polished shoes, at neat hair.  Yet now, I love it all.  If only he had lived to see the day I stepped away from grunge for good.  And if he knew I was finally growing out my natural hair colour?  Well, the excitement would have been overwhelming.

God bless,

Elise.