Monthly Archives: April 2011

Wedding Shoe Saturday

In honour of the royal wedding I thought I would keep up with the wedding theme. As you know I am a huge fan of the Vivienne Westwood + Melissa shoes, especial the Lady Dragon style. I have now seen a few brides choose them as their wedding shoes, how cute!

In honour of the royal wedding I thought I would keep up with the wedding theme. As you know I am a huge fan of the Vivienne Westwood + Melissa shoes, especial the Lady Dragon style. I have now seen a few brides choose them as their wedding shoes, how cute!


Of course we have to have a picture of the beautiful bride, Princess Catherine, in her Sarah Burton for McQueen dress. Double national pride for me as Sarah is a fellow Mancunian!


I have to say my other favourite dress belonged to Princess Eugenie in blue Vivienne Westwood – I just wish she hadn’t worn it with those shoes! Princess Beatrice, I think ruined her simple Valentino with that ridiculous head piece!


Of course I was just as excited to see Victoria Beckham, I love her! In a dress of her own design, perfectly flattering her baby bump and in sumptuous navy. I just hope she has a pair of flats in that handbag for later, she is actually defying gravity.
Hope you all enjoyed the wedding

Pearl
(Wedding credit Weheartit)

My Royal Wedding Outfit


(Wearing vintage Pierre Cardin dress, necklace of my own design made from vintage charms, Prada faux fur stole, Vivienne Westwood + Melissa shoes, vintage clutch bag – which is actually from www.shopstreetstyle.com from the new pieces yet to go on the site, but it just looked so lovely with the outfit and since I wont actually need my own bag to sit in the garden!)

Here I am off to the Royal wedding, oh ok I’m not really but thought I would dress up to get into the spirit of things. I think it is just wonderful for William and Kate, but also a great occasion to bring people together. Of course if I really were attending the wedding at Westminster I would be wearing something much more demure, Chanel with some form of hat for sure, ah ok more realistically within budget such as these stylish wedding outfits. But to celebrate at a garden party this vintage Pierre Cardin dress is perfect, I couldn’t resist throwing on the Prada stole, I know it makes me look like you crazy old aunt but I love it!


Have fun what ever you are doing!

Pearl

Prada S/S11 Fur Stole: Real or Faux Questions?

(Wearing Prada S/S11 faux fur scarf, Ann Demeulemeester jacket, Topshop jeans and shirt, Giuseppi Zanotti for Christopher Kane boots)

Here we go some photos of the Prada S/S11 scarf / stole, they are crap I know, I have found when you really don’t want to have your photo taken it shows through no matter how hard you try. I am sure I will get some better photos when I am feeling better. But this is what I wore to erm go to the post office ha! So because I am a bit obsessed with these scarfs here are some familiar faces to show you how it is done. I do wonder whether Miucchia gave official permission to wear them as scarves and not just strut around carrying them??



Real or Faux debate: How about the price?
My friend Aimee asked me a rather philosophical question this morning, why did Prada make the scarves in faux and real fur? I have to admit I too found it a surprise that they had. We both agreed that the reason is not likely to be Prada suddenly feeling the need to consider those who do not agree with real fur, rather the reason being the price points. The real fur cost £2995 whilst the faux £230, big difference. Yet huge fashion companies like Prada rarely feel the need to offer lower priced items from the catwalk collections, people will pay thousands, that is a fact. If you want to buy into the brand on a lower budget there are perfumes, sunglasses and even shoes.
Aimee also wondered by buying faux (she was thinking of getting a faux fur coat), would the fashion world judge her as only buying faux because she couldn’t afford real, regardless of the ethical factor? I said that since she wasn’t going to be paying the Vogue offices regular visits it wasn’t something she should really be worrying about. Besides you can pick up vintage real furs so cheaply these days, is real fur even as much of a status symbol any more?

Going back to the Prada scarves the faux are very similar to the real, infact most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference until they touched it. Perhaps this is why they made the real ones have stripes and the faux block colours so those who needed people to know the difference did. I noticed all the celebs photo’ed have real fur, except Anna Dello Russo who seems to have all the real and all the faux in every possible colour way, but she is ADR and that’s a whole different matter.
For the record I do not agree with the use of real fur, but that is not what I want to get into a debate about here. My question is why Prada would produce both? Did Miucchia mearly want to open up the scarves to the more mainstream fashionista? But lets face it they are still expensive, we are not talking about £10 from Topshop. Or did Prada want to give people the option of both real and faux, since luxury faux furs have been very popular lately, think Chanel A/W11.

All I know is that I seriously LOVE this scarf, in fact I realised pretty much everything Prada I own is furry and in most cases a ridiculus colour, Miucchica you rock!

Pearl

PS. The winnder of the Gift Voucher giveaway for www.shopstreetstyle.com will be contacted today via the method they left in their entry. If you do not respond within 48hours another name will be drawn.

Entering Wonderland


(Wearing Vivienne Westwood dress, cardi, shoes, belt and necklace)

My bestie Rich and I decided to take a trip to the big smoke, we only had a few hours and didn’t even get to half the places we planned! Time flies when your in Westwood I guess. Next time we will come for longer and hopefully have time to catch up with friends too.

First stop was Worlds End which has to be one of my favourite shops ever. It is small but has lots of unique Vivienne Westwood designs which are exclusive to the shop. Vivienne’s ethos for the shop is to keep the prices as cheap as possible, for example a dress on the Gold Label could cost £900 but be £300 on the Worlds End Label. I know that is still expensive but worth every single penny. You will find something for every budget though from £40 t-shirts to £10 badges.


(Rich is also wearing all Westwood – addicts, us??)
After a good rummage we came away with a rather modest assortment – we had plenty more shops to go, however we both got back and decided on things we should have got too so another trip is being planned! Actually I was so thrilled with the dress I got I wouldn’t have cared if it was the only thing I bought. You can’t tell from my crap phone photos below but it is the perfect fit, so flattering can’t wait to wear it. I also bought this wonderful fluorescent orange blouse with yellow and blue print – it is 100 times brighter than it looks in the photo, and a canvas belt. Rich bought some fabulous tops and a belt and we both bought a present for our mums.


Worlds End Shirtwaister dress, Gold Label Bezelbub blouse and Political ‘I am Expensiv’ belt

As we got off the train Ewoks and Storm troopers were milling around Euston, I have no idea why!

From Worlds End we walked down ‘the’ Kings Road (why do Londoners always put ‘the’ in front of roads names?? I really like it). We stopped off for a lunch of calamari salad and gin with cranberry cocktails. On to the Vivienne Westwood shops on Conduit St and Davis St, a stroll down Bond St and then onto Sloan St. By the time we made it to Sloan St we only had about an hour left so we planned to have a quick look in Prada and Chanel before picking up some macaroons and cakes at Laudree in Harrods to take home for our families (the bad idea was to scoff a cake on the train, Im lactose intolerant, so it resulted in me being so sick and having a nose bleed – totally worth it).
Toffee eclair and praline cherry cake
I have no idea what happened in Prada, I had wanted to see the colourful fur scarves but had no intention of buying one. I had heard mixed opinions as to whether they were real or faux, the answer is both, you can have either. The real ones come with striped halves whilst the faux are block coloured. I have to say you could only tell the difference upon felling the fur, they both looked just as fluffy. I offended the SA I think saying I thought real fur was vile, but she didn’t seem to mind too much and showed me all the faux fur ones. I thought they were nice but still had no desire to buy one, that is until I saw the pink and white one dangling from a mannequin!
I whipped it off her and had a prance around in front of the mirror and just like that decided it was coming home with me. I don’t even like pink! But I guess Florrie’s influence must be rubbing off. I was also thinking about my friend Lianne with who we had spend a few hours last year debating if she should get a black or pink hat and scarf in Chanel. I talked her into the pink and every time she wears it, it just looks so fabulous so I decided to go for the one my heart wanted! They look great on guys too, as Rich and I tried them all on. Again crap photo, I will take some better ones when I feel up to it. In real life the scarf is huge, it comes down to my waist it is also really, really fluffy. Can’t wait to show you properly, I love it so much I want one in every colour!

We also had some debate as to how to get the scarf home, the SA said the boxes were huge but she managed to find me a smaller one – I have no idea how big the original box was as the smaller one was still big enough to fit a small child in! It came in very useful for bashing people out of the way in Harrods (seriously let people get out of the lift, then you can get in, it is not difficult to comprehend is it???).

I need to stop typing now, I just started new Rheumatoid Arthritis meds and they are making my eyes blurry. I know I am such a medical marvel, in a hundred years you will find me pickled in specimen jars. The blurrs should go away after a few days. But don’t worry about me I am fine as I sit here in a hoodie, uggs and a big furry pink scarf!

Happy Easter

Pearl

Sneak Peek Prada

After an impromptu trip to London yesterday I am sitting half dressed, half in ‘jamers with my bad knee strapped up. I knew I was pushing it with the arthritis but I figure you can’t live your life worrying about what will happen tomorrow, besides there is always gin and painkillers for the bad days. Will get you guys a post up on our trip but I just had to give you a little peek at this, I am tooooooo excited!!! Never you mind what I said approximately 6 months ago, Miuchia apologies faux fur draught excluders were a marvelous idea.

Outfit: Butterfly Wings


(Wearing: Vintage dress, Vintage clutch, Chanel shoes)

I don’t usually dedicate this many photos to one outfit post but I had to show you this dress. From the triple tiers, to the lily print, the perfect midi length and the angel sleeves, not to mention it is the perfect fit. Don’t you love it when you find something so perfect it could have been made for you!

But as if all that wasn’t enough, wait until you see the back! It is like butterfly wings.

Perfect for summer evenings, can’t wait to take it out on the town. The clutch is actually one from my shop (in real life I have to carry far too much arthritis related crap around for a small clutch), borrowed for the photos. I adore the shell design on the envelope front.
Have a great Easter weekend,
Pearl

North West Blogger Meet Up, Give Away, Awards & Other Stuff

I have a few small things to mention so here they all are in one post:

First up us bloggers up North are having a meet up in Manchester on the 11th June, no time and location decided yet but if you are interested join in the discussions on the Google group: http://groups.google.com/group/nw-blogger-meet-up/about

Also another thing I keep forgetting, the giveaway to win a £20 gift voucher for my online shop http://www.shopstreetstyle.com/ is still running until next week- 27th. You could get a free dress or bag, or use the voucher against a bigger purchase! To enter click HERE

Also check out the gorgeous Tanya wearing her new dress from Shop Street Style on her blog Ye Old Socks

Don’t forget you can download my eBook a guide to spotting counterfeits including Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Vivienne Westwood FREE just click the link on the top right of the blog.


Finally blog awards, I have to admit I am a bad blogger when it comes to passing on awards. I usually blog about a week or so behind real time events and so end up forgetting to post the awards. I add the links to my favourites and then go to look for them, see I have about four billion links in there and can’t cope. I am in the process of sorting the list out into folders but it will take a while. So whilst I have this fresh in my mind a thank you to Caramel Latte Kiss, Jessica and Desiree.

So for one of the awards I have to list 7 things about myself, here goes:

1. I hate moths, its not a phobia just absolute loathing. As soon as I see one I think it will eat the vintage Chanel in a millisecond so I cannot rest until I have it nicely splattered up the wall.
2. I have an obsessive personality, I go through phases of things with food. I will be happy to eat pretty much just that one food until I get so sick of it I never want it again. At the moment it is avocado and black olives.
3. The obsessiveness also extends to designers or stores. Last year I had a thing for Zara and would buy full outfits from there. This only lasted a couple of months when I came to my senses and realised I was buying a load of tat I would never wear nor did I need. I have longer standing obsessions with certain designers mostly Chanel and Vivienne Westwood. At the moment I am back in a Viv phase.
4. Speaking of Queen Viv, if I had to choose my absolute favourite designer collection in the entire world it would be Vivienne Westwood’s Nostalgia of Mud aka ‘Buffalo’ collection. I was only 1 year old at the time it was released in 1982, but I hope one day to buy an outfit at auction.

5. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, I became ill at the begging of last year and put it down to flu, sprains, food allergies and generally being run down until I was diagnosed at the end of the year. Because I am awkward they still cannot detect the exact strain of RA even after months of tests. I have probably had every single blood test know to man. This week I finally start medication which will fight the disease, this can take up to 12 weeks to work but fingers crossed it will have good results. It is a funny thing, some days I can pretty much be OK, other days I have even the energy to get dressed. I don’t really like talking about it all that much, so most people don’t even know I have it, they just think I am anti-social / odd wearing winter clothing in summer / lazy as I never take the stairs. I have never been one to complain and just like to get on with things.

Boo and I enjoying the sun, Im wearing my Chanel clogs the subject of last years obsession
6. I have 8 dogs, Pomeranians to be precise. Technically Simba and Sirius are mine, who you have seen a lot of on the blog, especially Sirius as he likes to follow me around. Simba used to do this too but seems to have gotten used to the fact I don’t do anything remotely interesting if he isn’t there. The rest of the dogs are all divided up between the rest of my family, since we are all living together at the moment it is a bit of a full house! Here I am with Boo, Sirius’ mum, we aren’t too sure who would claim ownership of Boo as me and my mum tend to share her. My parents also have Ruby, Jet and Han and my brothers Chewie and Bella. Han and Chewie are the two brown poms, they are twins and you could never separate them, they have their own special games and ways of communicating just like human twins! We have no idea what we would do when we all have to move out so I guess will all have to live together forever- not something my brothers fiance finds as amusing as we do!

7. I hate chocolate flavoured things, like cake, muffins or cookies. Regular chocolate I love but it is just wrong in other things.
I can’t decide who to pass the award onto so I am passing it on to every one of my followers. I now have over 500 readers of this blog and they are only the ones I can see on the google counter, I know there are many more from your lovely emails, bloglovin, facebook and twitter and those who come to read that I never know about. I am really touched that you all take the time to come over here, thank you.

Pearl

Shoes for Any Occasion

I admit I really love browsing around online stores but there are some site which I favour more than others. These are the ones with a little bit extra. Sometimes I when I am not looking for anything in particular so I don’t want to search by item types or designer. I really like how some websites are adding ‘occasion’ categories, Spartoo shoes are especially good for this. On their home page they have different occasion options you can browse. What I really like about this feature is that it throws up shoe styles which I usually wouldn’t consider looking for, or think about wearing for that occasion. Here are some examples:


Sneakers: Converse All Star seasonal in ‘High Lagoon’
Honestly? Other than a pair of trainers for the gym (that I never go to) and running (being dragged around the park by my dogs) I don’t only. I never really see trainers as a fashion item but seeing a few girls wearing Converse I have to say they look great for summer with jeans and also dresses. This turquoise pair really caught my eye, the colour is lovely and fresh.

City: Marian in ‘Trebal red’

I love the ‘city’ lookbook photo, it could be any of us commuting to work (more likely without the hot guy to escort us). What really surprised me was the amount of of striking statement shoes in this category. Usually anything related to work wear is black, maybe brown, and very sensible. But I love the idea of brightening up your summer work wear with a hot pair of heels, Marian has lots of stunning styles but this red pair really called out to me!

Relax: French Soule ‘Unies Black’

You know when it gets really hot and your feet swell, all you want to do is walk around barefoot, but living in the city this isn’t really possible. I tend to avoid sandals as I find the straps can dig in so always stick to ballet flats which aren’t the best option. Something really appealed to me about the girl lounging on the grass in her Birkenstocks so I had a look through the ‘relax’ category and was pleasantly surprised to find these espadrille flats from French Soule, and at just £11 you can have them in every colour!


Green: Greenfit ‘Nati’

The term green certainly isn’t a word that springs to mind when thinking about shoes. But ‘Green’ is a wide selection of eco-friendly shoes. I was expecting some really geeky shoes in this category but what I found were some really stylish and comfortable looking shoes. The brand Greenfit were my absolute favourite, all natural thick leather straps and wooden heels but in sleek styles.

Chic: Marian ‘Sizana Blue’

Ok so this category really doesn’t need an explanation, a selection of beautiful chic shoes for evening or whenever you want to wear something special on your feet!

What do you think of ‘occasion’ shopping?

Pearl

Shoe Shopping: Prada & Miu Miu Runway Shoes

All Prada except second left which are Miu Miu

MINE ALL MINE!!!

Oh alright they aren’t, I just couldn’t resist having a good try on of the new season Prada and Miu Miu at Selfridges. Gorgeous though they all were, you won’t believe this but I didn’t buy a single thing.

I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed with the Miu Miu’s I have been lusting after, mind you they didn’t have the exact ones I liked with the closed toe my opinion may change when I finally see those! On the other hand I really loved the Prada wedges, but they were very hard underfoot and would need padded insoles. They would look amazing with flared trousers though. Also if you are interested they fit large I am a 38.5 and as you can see the silver in a 39 are far to big, whilst the grey in a 38 are just right, same for the Miu Miu sizing. We also fell in love with a black suede pair of Prada’s with a low, chunky wedge modelled by my friend Lianne.

The summer displays were well on their way, lessons in how not too in Harvey Nic’s (left) and definitely how too in Selfridges!

Random chip-board with cut out coloured paper in HN’s looked just awful, there is no way to say treat yourself like chip-board! On the other hand all the pretty flowers and butterflies looked wonderful in Selfridges, I loved how they used bell-jars to display some of the smaller accessories, so whimsical.

(Wearing All Vivienne Westwood)

Here’s what I wore, nothing you haven’t seen before posing in front of Louis Vuitton’s striking sunburst window.

What do you think of the new season shoes?

Pearl

Orange Fuzz Twins

I saw this photo on Tommy Ton’s blog and was wondering who else might love an orange Prada mohair as much as me.

The answer was Susie Bubble, I love how she paired it with Dries van Noten trousers. I can’t believe this is the only outfit photo I have of me wearing mine as I do wear it quite a lot. It is one of my absolute favourite things.

Fuzzy!