Tag: fashion

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Supermarket Style

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

My son is going on a school trip in a couple of weeks and I have been nagging him to choose some new clothes. He knows what he likes so there is little point in me picking out things for him. For T shirts he usually chooses Urban Outfitters as does my daughter. They are fairly expensive at around £35 and the quality isn’t fantastic in my opinion. I bought my daughter a purple T shirt with a yellow sun design which had completely vanished after the second time of washing (inside out and with non-biological washing powder). Anyway I was in Sainsburys this week and decided to have a mooch around the Tu Clothing section for a change. They had a 20% off offer. I was surprised to see a few T shirts very similar to my son’s Urban Outfitter’s tops all priced from £9- £12 before the discount. Bargain! I chose a pinky colored one. I also bought him a lightweight, plain black hoody. I sheepishly presented them to him when I got home fully expecting to have to return them on my next trip but my son really liked them.

I actually refused to set foot in Sainsburys for abut three years after I was accused of shoplifting after a cashier forgot to remove the magnetic strip from a leg of lamb. The security guard was incredibly rude to me. I really should have made a formal complaint but, once he actually acknowledged that my receipt quite clearly showed all my shopping had been paid for (obviously) he mumbled an apology. I didn’t want to be what I believe is now termed as a “Karen” about it and get him into trouble so I let it go. Anyway, on this recent visit the alarms also blared as I left the shop. I kept walking this time, receipt firmly in hand. I tell my children to hold onto their shopping receipts until they are off the premises. My daughter had a part-time job in a Sainsbury’s Local last summer and said shoplifters came in on every single shift. She had to wear a camera. I told her it wasn’t her job to confront anyone. At this particular branch they had no security staff at all. You could say that due to the cost of living crisis people cannot afford to buy food but, according to one manager at my local branch, it is the higher end cosmetics and skin care products that are targeted.

So, back to my purchases. This week I also bought a black leather Paul Costelloe backpack from Brand Alley. I had a £15 discount code and ended up paying £45 for a really high quality bag. It has now sold out on Brand Alley so I have linked the Paul Costelloe website where the Outlet section is well worth a look. I have been on the lookout for a backpack that wouldn’t be easy for a thief to just dip into and this one has a folded zip top and zipped pockets inside and out for valuables. It is quite small but definitely big enough for days out. I really like the silver hardware and think it looks quite expensive.

After also buying my son some much needed new jeans from ASOS for £25 , this has been a successful week in terms of inexpensive but good quality purchases.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Header Photo by Parker Burchfield on Unsplash

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Fruity Fashion & Strawberry Shirts

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

I don’t think of myself who wears a lot of prints, certainly not in the cooler months. but going through my summer wardrobe I see that I actually have lots of printed tops and, strangely, most of them appear to be fruit-themed. I have a batwing top with peaches on from Apricot Clothing, a dress with lemons on from Coast, cherry print PJs from Marks and Spencer and now I have a lovely strawberry shirt from Boden.

After my disastrous attempts at trying to buy some new trousers that actually suit me (see my post Wide Leg Woes ) I decided to refresh my wardrobe by treating myself to some new tops, all purchased online. The first one I bought was from a brand called Pieces, available from ASOS, a pink and white candy-striped formal style shirt with a strawberry design for £36. I bought my daughter a few things from this brand when she was doing her work placement in a London office and the quality is fantastic, especially given the reasonable price point. The cotton on this shirt is beautifully satiny but my youngest son (yes, I made the mistake of asking the opinion of my family again) said it looks like a pyjama top and it is also far too wide. I wish brands would stick to proper sizing and take the guess work out of XS, S, M, L etc. I also ordered from ASOS a strawberry print cardigan from Miss Selfridge for £27 but the quality of this isn’t so good and it doesn’t fasten at all which I know would find annoying so both these things go back.

I then take a look at what Boden have to offer. I used to buy a lot of their clothes, especially their cotton shirts and winter coats but then it got to the point where I seemed to have seen all their designs a hundred times before. Their clothing isn’t inexpensive but it lasts forever, I still have a navy blue wool coat with an applique design around the hem which I must have bought almost twenty years ago. I also used to love their children’s clothes, especially what they used to call their lamby-fleeces and the pretty halter-neck dresses that I bought for my daughter when she was tiny. Come to think of it, she also had a pair of strawberry print trousers edged in gingham from Boden. For myself, I decided to order their “Strawberry Pop” Sienna shirt. It was £55 but with the discount code I paid £49.50. It has arrived and it is so cheerful without being too much of a statement – I love it! The print is the header for this blog post. I am five feet eight inches tall and the sleeves are the perfect length which is unusual. I plan to wear it with my new Zara chinos.

After the cold, gloomy and very long winter, it is nice to have something bright to wear . Even my sons liked my new shirt and that is really saying something!

From left to right, Pieces shirt from ASOS, Miss Selfridge cardigan from ASOS and Sienna shirt from Boden

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Wide-Leg Woes

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

I am in my mid-fifties. When should I start dressing like an older woman? What does that even mean? Beige polyester slacks and an anorak, those shoes that do up with velcro? I have been dressing the same way for the past decade at least. Most days it is skinny jeans, sweater and boots in the winter and skinny jeans with a linen top in the spring/summer. I rarely wear dresses or skirts during the day, I buy them but it has to be really hot for me to abandon my usual uniform. Am I too old to wear jeans? I hope not but I would like to smarten up a little bit.

I have several pairs of jeans, mostly from Mint Velvet, but they all look identical. I desperately need a style refresh. My daughter tells me no-one wears skinny jeans anymore. So, I take the plunge and order some wide leg navy blue trousers from Boden, a company which I used to shop with all the time but I can’t remember when I last placed an order. The style is called Westbourne. They are £80 but Boden always have a discount code and I pay £60. The trousers arrive and are such good quality, the fabric drapes beautifully. It feels very strange to have so much fabric swirling around my legs. I go downstairs to show my husband who makes the helpful remark “why are you wearing Lionel Blairs?” Of course Lionel Blairs is Cockney rhyming slang for flares. I immediately package up the trousers, ready for return.

Boden “Westbourne” Trousers

Back to the drawing board, I order a cream denim oversized jacket from Mango for £35 and some flowy but straight leg jersey trousers. I also order two pairs of tailored chinos from Zara, one full length and one three-quarter length. Annoyingly the Zara trousers aren’t properly sized, so I have to guess at a size small. I also add a couple of their basic T shirts to my basket, £8.99 each. When the Mango trousers arrive I try them on and really like them. I show my oldest son and ask what he thinks. He looks concerned, as if it is a trick question. “Fine” he mutters but my husband has appeared and they share a little sideways glance. My son then says I shouldn’t wear trousers that are five times wider than my (skinny) legs. Great, thanks a lot. I suppose I did ask! I don’t ask anyone else’s opinion when I try on the chinos and decide to keep the navy pair even though I don’t love them, they will do. The cream jacket, which looked so good on the model, just looks scruffy on me so that goes in the returns pile too.

Mango “Flowy, Straight-Fit” trousers

So, after all that effort I have a couple of cheap T Shirts and a pair of OKish chinos. If I were wealthier perhaps I could go and see a personal shopper but I think that is rather beyond my budget and I would probably end up buying a lot of clothes I don’t actually like, just to be polite. I need to go through my wardrobe, donate about seventy five percent of the contents to the charity shop and see if I can start to wear the rest, especially the summer dresses.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Header Photo by Harper Sunday on Unsplash

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A New Bag From Pom Pom London

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

I cannot remember the last time I bought myself a new spring/summer bag. I have been using the same, now very tatty specimen from White Stuff for years, I have just sold it on eBay for an impressive £35. If I am going somewhere formal I will bring out my ancient Mulberry Bayswater which is as heavy as a suitcase and I also have a small leather backpack from a local boutique. I was having an online window-shopping session of handbags and the all-seeing Facebook algorithm began to show me advertisements from various leather-goods companies. Pom Pom London were appearing on my feed every time I logged on.

After seeing the Pom Pom London ad for the hundredth time I was sufficiently brainwashed and decided to order something from the brand. I usually choose a tan coloured bag for the summer but the tan bags on the website looked decidedly orange in tone so I decided to go with a colour called Stone. I chose the Mayfair bag, a camera bag style with a pocket on the front. Pom Pom London sell several different styles and sizes of bags with various mix and match accessories. At the time of writing this, each bag comes with a thin leather strap and two free additional straps, a small keyring and a coin purse, supposedly £81 of “free” accessories with a £89.95 purchase. Of course we all know none of these add-ons are really free, they are all factored into the overall price and I do not need a coin purse, which Pom Pom London sell individually for £27.95, I didn’t want the white furry keyring either. I chose my straps, a chain and leather woven strap and a cream and gold striped guitar strap. I couldn’t choose another colour coin purse, it had to be the same as the bag, Stone. I paid £89.95 a the checkout for the “bundle”. Delivery is free, worldwide.

When the bag arrived it was carefully packaged with all the hardware covered and each item individually wrapped. A cotton dust bag is included. The first thing I noticed was an overwhelming plasticky smell. Usually when buying new leather goods the smell is part of the appeal but not in this instance. I did think it may have been the packaging but it seems to be coming from the leather itself. The bag had looked a creamy colour on the website but in real life, it is more of a greige. I liked both the extra straps, the woven guitar strap is really attractive, my favourite part of the purchase. There were lots of different designs to choose from and these sell separately at £19.95 each. The coin purse was a pleasant surprise, much bigger than I’d expected and would easily hold a few bits of make up or some cards and cash. The bag itself is OK but nothing special, the zip sticks a little and the smell is just awful. I can’t work out what it is, if I didn’t know otherwise I would think it was PVC. The bag is lined in cotton, has a useful pocket on the back and is surprisingly roomy inside. It’s the perfect size for keeping your valuables close on a day out. The company have almost eight thousand reviews on Trust Pilot, an impressive 96% of those are five stars. I had a very quick scroll through a few of the reviews and could only spot one that mentioned the horrible smell.

Unfortunately that I will be returning these items and going to the actual shops for a look around. Sometimes you just need to see and feel an item, and to sniff it! If I need a fabric strap for another bag I would definitely revisit Pom Pom London but the bag itself isn’t quite what I am after. I will just add that the returns procedure is a little old fashioned. We are all so used to just going online for a QR code to be scanned at drop-off but to return the bag I have had to fill out an A4 form and print out a postage label The return postage is pre-paid though. Hopefully a refund will be forthcoming.

https://pompomlondon.com

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash

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What’s In Your Bag?

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

I rarely look at YouTube but last week I was looking for videos demonstrating how to make an A Level study timetable for my youngest son – exciting I know.  On my home page was a video suggested entitled What’s In My Bag? Huh? People actually spend their free time watching women discuss the contents of their handbags?? How asinine, I thought. An hour later, having entered some sort of trance state, I had watched about five of the videos, mostly Korean or Japanese YouTubers, no speaking just soothing background music playing and clumsily translated subtitles along the lines of “let me introduce you to the contents of my elegant bag” and “this lipstick creates an elegant and stylish atmosphere around the mouth”. The contents are all almost identical, a Louis Vuitton key pouch, £240, seems to be almost compulsory, a Gucci or YSL card holder, Airpods, huge iPhone, and a flat, rectangular bottle of hand-sanitiser which they all spray in the air around their faces declaring that it smells wonderful. I can’t imagine it is very good for their lungs.

Video on Youtube by GrownVlog

So what’s in my bag? I have small Ralph Lauren bag that I sometimes use if I am going out of an evening but, usually, I prefer a hobo style because I like to carry around a lot of totally unnecessary things.  In fact, creature of habit that I am, I have been buying a variation on the same style of bag for the past fifteen years. My current version is from Whistles, the style is called Baye. Black pebbled leather, gold hardware and very simple. In the summer I have an oak coloured Mulberry Bayswater (bought in the sale fifteen years ago) which I plan to sell as it is too heavy and formal. I tend to buy good quality items and use them for a long time.

The contents of my bag are not very exciting I’m afraid. The beautiful young YouTubers are all about Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Givenchy, Chanel and Céline. I did have a Chanel wallet but I recently sold it as I felt embarrassed using it at the Tesco checkout. Fortunately the large Classic Flap style I owned was recently discontinued so it became a desirable collectors item and I was able to recoup my money. Now I have a small Kate Spade purse, bought for £50 in the sales. Also in my bag you will find my ancient and very scratched Harrods key ring, a reusable shopping bag, small notebook, pen, umbrella, numerous crumpled but unused tissues, a Burts Bees lip balm or three, a mirror, comb, perfume sample, gloves and, if I’m likely to be waiting around anywhere, my Kindle. I did have beautiful silver keyring from Tiffany, given to me by a colleague years ago when I left work to have my first child, but a builder borrowed my keys for an afternoon and then never returned them. He looked me right in the eye and said he’d never been in possession of them. I hope he got a good price selling it or that his wife enjoys using my lovely keyring. I really should treat myself and replace it.

There’s something comforting about having a few of your own possessions with you at all times. In Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments when the women were rounded up their bags were confiscated and Atwood refers to the fact that they missed their little packets of tissues. Sadly, that was to be the least of their problems.

Now that I have wasted an hour watching this rather hypotonic content I should get back to researching A Level revision timetables!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha 

Cover Photo by Marissa Grootes on Unsplash