How to wear cropped trousers

There are certain styles that you never think will work for you, and cropped trousers have always been one of those for me. It wasn’t always that way – in my late teens I loved them, and had my fair share of black combat-style numbers that ended mid-calf. But pretty soon cropped trousers became last year’s trend and even my mother started buying them. During that time, I’d learned that there were alternatives for warm-weather dressing (like dresses, dresses and more dresses) and never really wore a pair of cropped trousers again. I was happy to leave them in the late 90s where they belonged, until now…

Three designer inspired items I’m crushing on…

I always feel a bit naughty buying cheaper high street versions of designer clothes, but the truth is I’m never going to shell out £500 for a jumper that’s a one-season wonder, or blow £500 on shoes that I’ll only wear twice. If I had the disposable income to buy designer clothes all the time, maybe I would (I suspect I’d still love trawling the rails of Topshop, though). But right now, my designer purchases tend to be the things I know won’t date so quickly – handbags, coats, retro style dresses and so on. When it comes to trends and seasonal styles, I have to budget, which means fast fashion. I think so long as the items are designer inspired, not fakes being sold as if they’re the real thing, they only strengthen the brand they’re emulating by drawing more attention to the specific look or style. Besides, a lot of the designer pieces don’t hang around for long, and I’m sure Victoria Beckham isn’t sweating the fact a few cut-price retailers are selling low cost alternatives to her sold out dresses.

So on that note, here are three designer-inspired looks I’ll be sporting this season…

Sale bargains I shouldn’t buy but probably will anyway…

This is a bit of a filler post, I have to admit. I’m showing you some of the stuff I’m not buying right now because it’s so hard to show you the stuff I have. There’s so much I want to show you – a new Linea Pelle bag, another beautiful Lady Vintage dress, some great finds from the sales…but getting decent snaps is proving difficult. I’m desperately trying to move away from the fuzzy shots I get in my dressing room (my camera really doesn’t like indoors lighting) but the constant rain and bad weather has been really affecting my ability to take decent shots outside (which also involves cajoling someone to take the snaps – something the boyfriend is not very good at). So while I wait for a Sunny moment tomorrow (IT HAS TO HAPPEN, right?) here are some of the items I’ve been coveting but attempting not to buy in recent days…

Fitting Room Adventures: Pepperberry

Pepperberry is the recently relaunched clothing range from underwear afficionados Bravissimo. Available in sizes 8 – 18 in three bust sizes (curvy, really curvy and super curvy) it aims to cater for women who’re fed up of having to buy a size bigger to accomodate their bust. As a DD/E cup, I own a couple of dresses from the old Bravissimo range (bought in the sales!) and they’re a beautiful fit, but in general the range had a tendency to be a bit frumpy and boring at times, so I was excited to see what they came up with in this new incarnation. I’d heard whisperings that there was a bit of a 50s influence, and the image above (the first to be released) definitely supported that idea…

2011: The year of dressing dangerously

I really enjoyed wearing a different dress every day during Dressember, and it was definitely great for helping me drag my old dresses out of the back of the wardrobe. But I also think it made me a bit lazy. Putting on some tights, throwing on a dress and some shoes and calling it an ‘outfit’ is a bit too easy for a fashion fan like me. Especially when all the tights are black and all the shoes are flat. One too many jersey dresses with a long-sleeved top have made even me admit that at the moment I look a bit…boring!

Tried & Tested: INES Collection’s plus size prints!

I’ve been sitting on this review for months (literally) because I didn’t want it to disappear in the middle of all the Dressember madness, so please forgive the fact I didn’t tell you all about INES Collection sooner! The brand (available at ShopTranslated.com, who ship internationally) offers affordable plus size dresses and blouses with an emphasis on prints – a great move as plus size fashion is so often black, black, black, and while some people can totally pull that off, others want a bit of colour!

I was sent the Graphic Pop dress ($72) and a ruched sleeve peacock print blouse to try out, so read on for how I got on!

Get your dresses on for Frocking Friday!

If you enjoyed following the ladies (and gents!) taking part in Dressember, then you might like to know that some of the folks taking part are continuing their challenge to wear more dresses by taking part in Frocking Fridays. The premise is simple – every friday you must wear a dress and upload the pic to the Facebook group. Don’t worry if you missed the first couple of weeks, you can still join in and take part for the rest of the year. You can repeat dresses so don’t worry if you don’t have 52 of them floating about, it’s all about getting out of your jeans and trying something a bit more glam!

Going Green with my glasses

Going through the contents of my bag the other day reminded me that I’d yet to blog about a recent discovery that’ll be right up your alley if you like your accessories practical, ethical and beautiful…and if you wear glasses! The brand in question is Modo Eco, who’re responsible for my latest pair of specs. I have a tiny prescription and only need my glasses for time spent in front of the computer or TV, so I’ve always worn glasses rather than contact lenses. They’re easier to take on and off as needed, and as far as I’m concerned, any excuse to accessorise works for me…

Judging the Simply Be plus size model competition

This week I left London for a couple of days and headed to Manchester for the long-awaited final of Simply Be‘s ‘Face Of Plus Size Fashion’ modelling competition. I was absolutely honoured to be asked to join Alison and Natalie from Simple Be, Jackie from Best Magazine and Sarah from 12+ UK Model Management as one of the judges, though I don’t think I realised until I got there just how difficult it was going to be to pick just one woman from the group of amazing ladies who made up the final 16!

The rules of the competition were left wide open, with no restrictions other than the fact you had to wear size 14+. The finalists (who’d been preselected by the team at Simply Be) were a really wide range of sizes, heights and ages, which I thought was fantastic. It was so wonderful to see women of all shapes and sizes looking gorgeous – and not shying away from fitted shapes, tricky trends and bold colours – but it also made choosing an eventual winner really difficult, because I loved so many of the girls for different reasons…

Label Love: Closet at Dorothy Perkins & Oli

A chat the other day with Amber reminded me that though I’d tweeted about them, I’d yet to write about my latest dress discovery – a gorgeous brand called Closet that’s stocked in some larger Dorothy Perkins stores, as well as on their website and Oli.co.uk. As a rule their dresses tend to be quite structured and fitted, with more than a little inspiration coming from a certain Mrs Beckham. And they give you a waist like you wouldn’t believe!

Though I’d never really considered myself a fan of Posh’s style, she does know how to make dresses that flatter curves (ironic, considering her severe lack of them), and Closet have taken a few of her more iconic designs, along with plenty of generic but very pretty nipped-waist, tulip skirted shapes, and whacked them out in everything from heart print to classic black. It’s not exactly envelope-pushing fashion ingenuity, but it is really easy to wear and universally flattering.