Stella.

Cardigans by Stella McCartney

Since I began noticing clothes- back from the very first day I discovered the thrill of dressing in my 90’s signature of “inside out, wrong-way-round” dressing-up-bin-couture (it was a revolutionary move)- I have never been so stunned, nor besotted, by one item as much as I am with this Stella McCartney cardigan. It is an absolutely remarkable piece of woollen architecture. It’s just so bloody interesting and the texture is so rough and yet so beautiful. It’s one of those pieces that you wouldn’t (believe me I have scrutinized the net for a cheaper version, but with no avail) find anywhere else. It’s versatile in how you could wear it, but it’s a statement. (It’s a cardigan that I can’t even call a cardigan- it’s a ‘piece’).

Every fashion week, I flick through pages and pages of bollocks sloppily written by fashion journalists underneath pictures of catwalks teeming with absolutely nonsensically priced, inexcusably un-wearable (and I don’t mean just Paris) “ready to wear” garments, that are only lusted after by everyone from Anna Wintour to your neighbour because of the flappy label with someone’s name on. I appreciate the difference in quality, design and time between H&M and Chanel, but it still doesn’t explain the ludicrous difference in price. Unless Lagerfeld has personally stitched each seam with his own silver hair, I just don’t understand how someone can pay so much for something that in as little as 6 months time, will no longer be valid as appealing in the Vogue editorials.
I admit, I too would love a Mulberry Alexa; I would shiver with pleasure if a Burberry trench was on my shoulders, and would feel like the most powerful, chic, woman in this side of the bloggersphere in a Chanel Tweed suit, but come on, is this something that you’re going to want to keep for your daughter one day? It gives me the same sort of emotions as reading the Daily Mail; a dangerous mix of loathing, jaw-grinding anger and a wave of absolute hysteria at the farcical claims they make. This is just that. It’s pathetic. And anyone who can afford, and are willing to pay, that much for such an, frankly, embarrassingly hideous, piece of clothing, deserve to be stripped of their assets; wealth and wardrobe and left with nothing but their lovely pvc investment to survive in.
I have fell victim of label lust; you pay the extra for the trust in the brand, and the feeling of eminence you get from owning it. You’re essentially paying for heritage. You wouldn’t savour a River Island smock as an heirloom, but you would a McQueen. And my point is (yes, I did have a point), just as my Grandmother has saved a wardrobe full of her favourite pieces from her life time for my sister and me; this is something that would be in mine.

FACT: It would take me 60 days to earn enough to pay for this cardigan
I would have to starve for 70.
No cardigan is worth that, lets be honest.

Love and let(s) wait (for them to go on sale)

I have been lashed back into the turbulent, exhausting practise of falling in love. With these shoes. But Alas! For these BANK shoes and I, it was not a tender tale of love at first glance; in fact, when I first saw at them my eyes lingered only milliseconds more on them than all of the other shoes on the page, and I moved on, favouring others before them. But since I was on Shopstyle all of these pretty little pieces kept screaming my attention with their beautiful red reduced prices. They were all from BANK, and they were having a sale. Now I don’t tend to shop at BANK- I don’t know why, really- I guess it is just one of those shops that I don’t immediately consider when I think of High street clothes stores. That’s probably down to the fact that Liverpool only got the store along with Liverpool ONE and the other dozens of unfamiliar names a few years ago. Anyway, back to these bad boys. I was looking at the shoes (as I do) and (sound Angels singing and a distant, but blinding, buttery drip of white lights...) there they were. And I have to have them. However, I am horrendously cheap, and I have never spent £40 on a pair of shoes before, and I don’t intend on starting now, in the midst of my I-don’t-know-how-to-budget-and-I-have-never-had-a-wage-before-and-the-only-other-time-I-have-ever-had-such-a-large-sum-of-money-in-one-go-is-Christmas/birthday fortnight-and-that-was-disposable-but-this-has-to-keep-me-from-starving-and-sleeping-rough crisis. So I am going to do what I do best. Forget about them and wait for them to be cheap enough for me not to shake on the bus home feeling like someone has ripped my intestines out and fashioned a Turban out of them to sell at discount prices to market stalls.