Coming soon...

This Friday, the 3rd of December, i'll be off up to Birmingham for the Clothes Show Live. It'll be the first time i've been and I promise i'll be taking lots of photographs of anything beautiful that catches my eye while i'm there.

This year the show is presented by Gok Wan, so there should be lots of sparkles about!

Topshop Collection - Abigail's Party

Abigail's Party is a new collection from Topshop, the description of the collection is: "Prints and embellishments combine with billowing chiffon and wide-leg trousers for perfect 1970's style! Team with platforms and a blow dry and you're ready to go."

Now I can't resist anything remotely '60's or '70's so this collection is right up my street. It's authentic looking with a modern twist, nothing cheesy, no day-glo huge flairs or paisley prints. It's understated and beautiful.

It immediately made me think of the film The Virgin Suicides, watch this video made of film stills for the song Playground Love by Air to see if you agree:

Here's my favourite pieces from the Abigail's Party collection, and here's the rest.

The '70's are huge at the minute and Topshop have done amazingly well at getting the clothes as close to genuine as possible. Enjoy!

Men can be pretty awesome too!

After yesterday's inspirational women post I got to thinking that I didn't want to sound like one of those feminists who hate men, hey let's face it there are some pretty amazing men in the world too.

So here is a man who I think is very underrated, a boy actor who starred in the first series of Sugar Rush, (Who remembers that?!) to a man who you may have seen in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, ITV's Red Riding, or gracing the pages of Vogue with Lily Cole and Lady Gaga. (Not that I would usually promote ANYTHING that features Lady Gaga!)

Andrew Garfield. You may not know the name but you'll have seen the face, (Anyone seen The Social Network film yet? Recognise him now?!) and if not then you soon will as he's just been picked to play Peter Parker aka Spiderman in the new film: Reboot which is due out in 2012.

This half British half American actor come model is very quickly becoming Hollywood's next big thing. I might even start going to the cinema.

Inspirational Women - Collette Costello

Don't you love finding someone that just makes you say "wow!" As we know, women are amazing so i'm going to be bringing girl power into the 21st century and once a month featuring woman whose talents deserve to be talked about!

Collette Costello is Manchester based designer who not only designs and creates clothes and accessories, runs her own website and online shop but also manages to find time to share her talents by teaching how-to-make courses and giving talks on her career.

What a woman!

Her website and online shop are a delight to browse and I know exactly where my web searching fingertips will be heading come pay day!

The cute designs which range from women's clothing to children's clothing, jewellery, bags and home ware are now on my 'want' list, and if I could make it up to Salford, Manchester then i'd definitely be going along to one of her courses to learn how to make a beautiful dress or skirt myself, but as I can't i'll have to have one made by Collette herself!

Follow-my-blog-with-bloglovin

Vintage Toes

If there's one thing that can cheer a girl up then it's a trip to the shops. If there's one thing that can cheer this girl up then it's a beautiful piece of vintage clothing.

There's just something special about vintage, finding that one off piece that no-one else will have, the jealous looks as you stride proudly through town in that gorgeous vintage coat, or when someone asks where you got your dress from "Oh it's vintage..." little else beats that feeling.

I've just bought my second ever pair of vintage shoes, both pairs although dating back to the 1970's have been brand new although it doesn't stop the fact that you can't wear them like new shoes. I learnt that the hard way, I have a beautiful pair of broken 1969, 1" heel modette shoes. The soles split and aren't repairable.

I did vow never to buy vintage shoes again but i'm terrible for breaking promises to myself when it comes to shopping. The latest pair are from make lemonade, a beautiful online vintage store with very reasonably priced vintage clothing.

My favourite pieces on the site right now include:

This cosy looking grey fluff jumper, and:

These beautiful 70's platforms.

You might want to check the website out quick as come the first week of December, Make Lemonade will be launching on the ASOS marketplace and you never know how quickly stock will be flying off the Make Lemonade stand!

Movember - Every Man Deserves a Little Bit of Luxury

Movember started in 2003 in Melbourne Australia, the idea was to bring back the mustache and to raise awareness of mens health. They were inspired by women who raise awareness of breast cancer and wanted to do the same thing for men.

So here's the plan, on the first of November, hereafter known as Movember, men began to grow their mustaches and will continue to do so until the end of the month, it's day five now, i'm sure no-one will mind if you start late!

There are Mo parties throughout the world, you can organise one yourself! Just browse the official Movember website for details here All procedes from the parties and also sponsorship for actually growing your Mo go towards prostate cancer charities. You can also donate directly onto the website.

So men, grow your Mo's and ladies so you're not left out, why not try a mustache themed item this month. For example, drink your tea from this mustache mug!

Or wear this delightful Tatty Devine mustache ring, just one item in a collection of mustache based accessories for men and women.

Here's some inspiration for you all to grow that Mo!!!

Hercule Poirot - David Suchet

Rufus Hound - The best Mo in comedy

And there is no way I could have left out the sexiest Mo in film and television - Tom Selleck

Lanvin for H&M

It seems that everybody’s been eagerly awaiting the launch of Lanvin for H&M, which will be in over 200 stores worldwide from November 23rd. Now personally I don’t get the big fuss. Ok, ok I know it’s designer and it’s available on the high street but after seeing the collection, there isn’t really much that I would even try on, let alone buy.

‘The Show’ is a 4:25 minutes long advert for the collection, and is a rather confusing mass of models going about their rather odd business in a hotel. Oh, and everybody’s wearing and is seemingly obsessed with Lanvin for H&M.

H&M may be one of the most successful high street stores in the world but these cut price designer creations are far from high street prices. The lowest priced dress being £99.99 and a man’s tuxedo jacket is £79.99.

Lanvin are the latest in a line of designers to team up with and produce collections for H&M, others include Jimmy Choo and Karl Largerfeld.

This is one image from the campaign, and who better to explain the story behind it than Alber Elbaz, the man who’s head all of these designs came from.