OOTW - Winter Hates My Face

Like the rest of the country snow finally reached us yesterday, typically on the day I had to make my way into town, so I wrapped up warm in preparation for the chilly and perilous walk to the bus stop... and then sneakily bagged a lift from a very lovely friend (Charlotte Davies you rock!).

After donning my two pairs of tights, two pairs of socks, vest top, dress, jumper, cardigan, coat, scarf, gloves and earmuffs, I realised I didn't go to all this effort to look stylish a warm and no one even see me (I spent the next 7 hours inside Toni & Guy, mostly wrapped in one of those black gowns), so I was brave and ventured into the snow for an outfit post... with mixed results. My face is blue and I have a very miserable frozen expression in most of these pictures, so only chose a few to put up, oh dear.

Jumper - Vintage (Retro Rehab), Dress (seen as skirt) - Vintage, Cardigan - H&M mens, Scarf - H&M, Socks - M&S, Wellies - a gift from Francesca years ago, Earmuffs - Primark, Necklace - Accessorize 

The snow was a lot thicker today, a good 4/5 inches, and much much colder, I don't think I've ever seen snow this deep, especially not this early in the season! Oh & you should know I slipped and fell on my bum last night walking home, I am so achy, have a huge bruise and feel like I broke my hip. It's official, I HATE snow & it hates me :-(

These are not just snowy photos either, they also serve as my 'Before' shots, as when I got home last night The Boyf dutifully took some pictures of my new hair, I'm wearing the same outfit minus the tights and scarf, so its fun to see the contrast and how much a hairstyle effects your outfit. Though since it was dark and subzero temperatures outside we took them in the hallway. Will post them tomorrow.

Gosh you must all be fed up of snow posts by now? I swear its the only news going on in this country, everything has grinded to a halt, and us fashion conscious bloggers are out there in the frost taking photos, what are we like ay!?

Happy 1st of December by the way (and Happy Hanukkah incidentally, if any of you are of the Jewish persuasion!), are you all getting into the festive spirit with this weather? I ventured into town this afternoon for a spot of Christmas shopping and the German Market, I have to say it was nice with the huge snow flakes falling all around us as we wondered the market, mulled wine in hand, very picturesque. I bought a onesie from Primark for myself so am cuddle up on the sofa right now in my giant fleecy baby grow, hehe, I may look ridiculous but my feet sure are toasty!

Loves, VW x

OOTW - An Autumnal All-Round Experiment

Hi guys, I still can’t believe there’s a whole 5 of you following me that I don’t know in real life (9 total)! Thanks for reading my lovers, sorry for the HUGE post.

Today’s OOTW is what I’d call an experiment, all in the name of self improvement I might add, so please comment on what you like and don’t like etc! In an effort to improve my blog I’ve been scouring your fashion blogs (yes you!) and sussing out what I like and don’t like, and well there’s not much I don’t like and a whole lot I do! So taking ‘inspiration’ from you lovely ladies I present my very autumnal OOTW.

Scarf - Vintage, Coat - Zara, Shirt - Vintage, Jumper - Topman, Necklace - DIY (see Eagerly Awaiting the Postman), Shorts - New Look?, Socks - Marks and Spencer?, Brogues -Urban Outfitters.

1. You will notice this post is very picture heavy compared with my previous endeavours, this is mainly because I couldn’t choose which pictures to show you from my ‘shoot’ and after spending hours ‘researching’ I decided it’s nice to have a lot to look at to go along with my constant ramblings!



2. Yes you clever little thing, it’s outside. You’re all doing it, and the out doorsy pictures look so much prettier than my dreary blank wall/door backdrops, so I gathered up the courage to venture into the ‘garden’ of our flat block on the way home from lunch yesterday and tried not to think about all the residents looking out their kitchen windows with puzzled/bemused looks.

3. This coat was screaming to be pictured amongst the autumn foliage don’t you think? That was a bit of an experiment too, wearing the coat itself, it’s from the Zara sale in January 2006. I bought it way back in the day because I was obsessed with orange (ok so I still do love it as a colour, just not generally to wear), my room was orange, my mobile was orange, any present anyone ever bought me was a little orange, I think for a while there my hair was even orange, ok you get the picture?! So when I saw it for £40 I begged my mother, ‘but its ORANGE mum, pleeeaasse, it’ll be really warm tooooo!!’ I lovingly wore this coat almost every blustery day that year (I even wore it on my very first date with The Boyf), well until October that is, when I traded it in for a blue one from Next, hey every girl gets a new winter coat for school don’t they? And they’ve been vying for attention ever since...

Actually that’s a lie because this year I’ve lived in my trench and last year I wore my oversized hounds-tooth blazer almost day in day out, so I probably haven’t worn this coat for 2 years! So why did it get relegated to the back of my closet if I loved it so much? Boredom I guess, and maybe for a while there I was quite afraid to wear winter brights, thought I might stand out like a lit up Christmas tree; but you know what...? This A/W if there’s one thing I love more than the neutrals, camel, brown, grey, black: it’s bright, bright, bright! What better way to clear up a tad of ‘Seasonal Affected Depression’ than by injecting a splash of summer colour into your snugly warm wardrobe! Dear Orange Coat, Welcome back old friend.



4. Outfit experiment in general. More than just rediscovering the coat, I put the whole look together yesterday morning as a bit of a trial run. The blouse/shirt is new to me, I picked it up last week for £6 and this is the first time I’ve had a chance to wear it, but it was so chilly looking outside that I layered the jumper for extra warmth, which was great as it allowed me to still show off the funky collar. Then I’ve noticed everyone’s been rocking the winter shorts recently and thought they’d look great with my long grey socks, but I hadn’t worn these yet this year because I kind of hate my legs/knees and realised the socks might emphasise and further my body-part hatred. After seeing these photo though I’m quite happy; I’m usually looking down on my legs you see, and have over analysed the bowing of my calves and swell of my knee on many occasions, but you guys never see me from that rather strange angle so I don’t know why I worried?

The whole outfit pulled together quite well in the end didn’t it?

5. A’la naturelle. I didn’t edit any of these photos. The Mr took them as always, and we are only working with a ‘point and shoot’ digital camera (Casio Exilim to be exact), so normally a few tweaks are a must but I don’t have photoshop etc on my laptop so the quality isn’t great anyway. This week shooting outside was fab, the natural light really worked it’s magic and for the pictures with a greater colour intensity we actually let the camera do all the work and put it on ‘Autumn leaves’ mode, quite apt don’t you think? Anyway, I’m a bit of a technophobe at heart and can’t get to grips with all the free photo editing software I’ve seen recommended, so from now on I’ll stick to a bit of natural light and the camera’s built in genius, and if all else fails hello Windows Photo Gallery ‘Fix’ to hoik up the brightness and contrast! I suppose I could drag my lazy ass off to uni and use Corel Photopaint etc... one day, maybe.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Loves VW x