High Street Springs into action

So the winter sale dregs are (finally) being removed from the shop floor, in order to make way for the latest spring drops, and this all led for a very exciting sight indeed as I headed out to partake in a spot of shopping earlier this week.

One of my favourite high street stores has to be Zara, they always deliver good quality garments at a reasonable price and provide wearable day-night pieces. And they don't seem to have disappointed this season as the shop floor was awash with rosy pink and caramel hues, a clear nod to the ballet inspired designs as seen at Chloe and J.Mendal.

For me where Zara excels though is in there bags and shoes, I always seem to walk out with a pair and at least another 3 firmly planted on my wish list; this week was no exception as I selected a pair of tan leather roman, wedge sandals

A new edition to zara's footwear this season is a kind of squishy sole that goes underneath the ball of your foot - I am seriously hoping this goes some way to increasing my poor tolerance to heels so I stop having to lug around spare flats wherever I go.

The other items that caught my eye were a pair of pink ballet flats, and a gorgeous turquoise handled bowling bag. 

I couldn't quite justify buying either of these items just yet though - for now I perfectly executed my powers of restraint; there's always next week though. You can view Zara's full collection online at www.zara.com

In other news I finally got my little paws on the eagerly awaited Whistles Carrie skirt that hit stores this week. A neon pink, midi-length, chiffon piece of heaven that manages to encapsulate the spirit of spring/summer in a single stretch of fabric.

At £95 it's not exactly cheap, but is a snip compared to the £500+ that you would pay for one of the coveted Jill Sander versions.

The skirt provides an easy way to incorporate the neon trend into your daily wardrobe - if like me your not blessed with model standard skin and colourings, than the vibrant shades can appear a little unflattering, the perfect solution is to restrict them to your lower half paired with a universally flattering white tee. 

The skirt and all of Whistle's beautiful collection can be found online at www.whistles.co.uk

Oh an one more thing, if you are tempted by any of Whistles offerings, and are based in the UK, this months Glamour magazine has a 20% off voucher, so go check that out first :)

Gok's Clothes roadshow: a fashion fix too far?

So I would like to preface this post by saying that I LOVE Gok Wan. He has single handedly brought fashion back onto our TV screens, his shows are light hearted, easy viewing, and he never ever says that anyone needs to lose weight in order to look good.

BUT

His new series 'Clothes roadshow' is really starting to annoy me.
The whole premise behind the show (in case anyone hasn't delved into Channel 4 recently) is that he pits the UK high street's clothes up against the worlds biggest designers in order to prove that anyone can look and feel amazing on a shoe string budget. Sounds good right? And it would be, if he actually used cheap high street clothes. Instead he uses heavily customised clothes, that are just as un-obtainable for the average viewer as the designer garments he tells us to shun every week.

Case in point - on tonights episode he fashioned a tartan dress out of two old picnic blankets, and customised an American Apparel top with £300 worth of crystals that took over 40 hours to be painstakingly glued on. If I tried to walk out the house in a blanket fashioned as a couture gown I would look like I was ill, and needed to head straight on back to bed, and I just don't have the time or the funds (an lets be totally honest the skill), to glue thousands of diamonte onto a mesh top.

Now I am not saying his designs don't look beautiful - they do. (The pictures below show how he transformed a plain blue jersey maxi, into a stunning evening gown.) But there is no way I, and I am guessing the majority of viewers, could recreate them at home. Instead of heralding our British high street stores, he seems to be quietly implying that there is no way you could ever look good by just wearing the clothes as you buy them.

Simple jersey dress one minute

£100, and a professional seamstress later is a lust worthy evening gown

So what do you think? Are going to be whipping out the glue gun and picnic blankets to put together your next ensemble, or do you wish Gok would return to attainable clothes that his viewers could actually wear.

The Carrie Diaries

So it has been revealed that Sex and the City maestro Michael Patrick King is planning on giving Carrie yet another outing onto the big screen.

This time however we won’t see her as the whimsical, yet uber fashionable Manhattanite, awash with fabulous friends, an even more fab wardrobe, and an on/off romance with Big. Instead we will be introduced to her teenage self as we witness her first steps into NYC.

Based on the novel of the same name by SATC writer Candace Bushnell, The Carrie Diaries sees Ms Bradshaw finish high school, and leap straight into the big city and a romance with an older man. Sound familiar? Big and Alexander Petrovski anyone?

And who is being lined up to play the young Carrie? If rumors are to be believed the ultimate Park Avenue princess Blake Lively, of Gossip Girl fame, is all set to step into SJP’s inappropriately high Manolos.

Blake Lively 

Sure she has the fashion sense, but to be completely honest, I am not 100% sure how I feel about someone else playing Carrie, and the whole prequel in general.

Exactly how much more mileage (and money) can be squeezed out of the franchise?

Not only would the Carrie Diaries feature the central protagonist without her ever popular co-stars, it would also completely alienate the SATC core audience.

When debuted in the nineties, the show was geared toward the single 20-30 somethings, who have now become 30-40 somethings. To them  the worryings of a teenage Carrie are simply irrelevant..

I wish the film companies would leave the franchise alone for it to be remembered as it was back in the late nineties, early noughties – a ground breaking show that broke boundaries, empowered women and brought fashion to the foreground.