UNIQLOve

Mother dearest was wed at the weekend, and unlike her first wedding, my sister and I actually got to witness, no, not just witness, star in the event (please mother we all know who everyone was there to see), and boy was it a good show. Mother shone in a tailor-made, floor-length silver dress and the rest of the bridal party were all clad in white. Songs were sung, vows were made and tears were shed (I was a messss). Anyway let’s backtrack to the important stuff, so its Tuesday before the Saturday wedding and Niamh hasn’t got a bloody dress, and where do I stumble upon a nice little number but UNIQLO! Now, I love UNIQLO (I’ll probably be buried in the flannel UNIQLO shirt), no, my exclamation is just to emphasise my surprise at having found a wedding-appropriate dress here. Obviously my version of wedding-appropriate is probably about 5 inches north of other more decent folks’, but regardless this fit my bill, and its bill more than accommodated my budget (Oh snap! Bill...bill, d’ya get it?! D’ya see what I did there...amazing), at a meagre £25. Mon dieu! Zute alors! Other French exclamations! £25 for a wedding-appropriate dress?! Oui oui mon petit bon bons, this blessing was brought to me courtesy of the Designers by Invitation scheme at UNIQLO, it’s probably been around for bare time but I’ve only just be made aware of it and I quite enjoy it, yes yes. My dress is a simple white number with a fancy god-zip and panel detail thing at the back and it did receive a number of compliments on the big day, but I also quite fell in love with a little strappy playsuit, neither of which are adequately photographed on the UNIQLO website (hmm annoying), but both of which are by designers Shipley & Halmos.

                My Knowledge of this spritely pair was as rich as my knowledge of the existence of this little UNIQLO rolling designer collaboration thing, so I took a look see at a couple of their most recent actual collections, what one can’t buy for the pittance I paid for the UNIQLO dress, and here’s what I found; Their womens wear is nice and simple, if (alas) a little dull and very reminiscent of pretty much the exact high-street luxe tailoring you can find at the likes of Reiss and Cos. The only womenswear item I could covet (if forced) is the satin Peg trouser, although I can’t really see what separates it from similar styles already out there (hmmm). But calm down Shipley, relax Halmos, my review is not all doom and gloom, your menswear shirts have quite tickled my fancy and stir within me and sudden and unexpected urge to rock a geek-meets-dandy look, I mean the urge will never truly evolve past the conceptual phase but as an idea it certainly is entertaining me.

In short, Shipley & Halmos in collections = average, Shipley & Halmos as invited to the UNIQLO party = very nice and cheap and stuff, and, UNIQLO Designers by Invitation = Jolly good idea, may as well have been designed to satisfy my growing need for designer X high-street collaborations. Thank you and Well Done.

Shipley & Halmos A/W '09 (Image - style.com)

 Shirt I like. Shipley & Halmos A/W '09 (Image - style.com)

Beach Wear - a grudge

I was as excited about the Matthew Williamson collection at H&M as everyone else, especially the covetted electric blue Gucci-esq suit with the pink piping which like so many things these days is relegated to my imaginary wardrobe full of imaginary clothes bought with imaginary money paid to me by my imaginary job...its a beautiful place, believe me, the fact that it will probably only ever exist in the realms of my mind is above and beyond the point. I digress, I was about to launch a semi-attack on the MW collection before the closet of my dreams went and took over the subject matter (it really is very lovely), so dragging myself back to point I must express my disappointment at finding out that the collections theme seemed to scream 'beach wear' from every translucent, brightly-coloured, printed kaftan and all I wanted to do was cover my ears and run. I should tell you now how I harbour a deeply negative feelings about beach wear. Just to be clear when I refer to 'beach wear', I'm not refering to Bikinis or the like that would fall neatly into the inoffensive category of swimwear, I'm talking the dreaded sheer kaftan, the sarongs, the flip-flops, anything that you really would never wear on the streets of your home town. I just can't see how in our entirity of wardrobe options we can't scrape together something beach approriate, a long t-shirt for example...casually thrown over a bikini non? A strapless summer dress...casually thrown over a bikini...one can only throw on garments casually on holiday, rushing and flustering is nigh on in possible, I tried it once and had to sit down and rest a while. Another frustrating thing about beach wear is its stationary position in the evolutionary process...at what point since the invention of the beach kaftan have you seen a new and innovative beach look? I can tell you at which point...It was at no point! Not even in my imaginary wardrobe assembled of imaginary garments can this invention be realised, beach wear is permanently stuck in the damn kaftan vortex, throw in a little zebra print and some paisley and cue every single beach wear corner of every single high-street store in your vicinity. Bored. Bored. Bored. Who made up the rule that when one holidays one must holiday from their sense of personal style as well as their hectic lives and the curse that is the British summer? Whoever is was I want to meet them and I want to make them eat a kaftan. 

PS I do actually LOVE the tv advert for the Matthew Williamson X H&M collections, its awesome and made me realise we don't really tv advertise clothes stores in the UK, I'm thinking Phillip Arcadia Green et al. should consider following suit, then I wouldn't have to watch so many boring, unattractive people bang on about how tripping on a curb was the fault of their next door naighbours dog and they were gonna sue it for all its doggy pounds on a no win no fee basis. yes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRio4P6BtXk

Advert I like

Au revoir Simone dans le Bush Hall. oui. oui. bravo. encore. oui.

After the day from hell at the Diner I gots a call from the boyf saying he'd booked tickets to see our mutual girl crush Au Revoir Simone that night at The Bush Hall. Well that done cheered me right up. Au revoir Simone are basically the definition of adorable, all long, shiny hair, nautical stripes and sweet as pie dresses; this New York trio took the biscuit of Parisian cuteness and ate it right up. And if it wasn't enough that they looked like they floated down from a cloud on a floating gondola, they make pretty music too. All keyboards and drum machines and drinking tea on stage. If I was a guy I would wanna date them. But I'm a girl so I just want to...well...date them.