Selling your soul.

The January sales, most of which actually now start on Boxing Day, may be great for buying things like t.v's and sofas, but fashion wise they are usually a bit hit or miss. Sometimes you get lucky and find a spectacular bargain that you can't wait to brag about, but most of the time you'll end up with something you never wear, nothing more then a spectacular waste of money. From my experience the best fashion sales seem to be in department stores. This is probably because they have so many different brands in them, and a more seasonal turnover then high street fashions. A brand like Armani Jeans, DKNY or Ralph Lauren tend to have less of a turnover then somewhere like Topshop and the items are often a bit more classic then hugely fashion forward. Buying a pair of reduced sequined leggings might seem like a great idea now but in a few months there is every chance you won't want to be seen dead in them. However something a bit simpler and classic, that is of high quality will last you for ages and if you got it for a bargain then it seems like the best purchase you ever made. Also getting something that cost £100 for £40 is always going to seem like a much better bargain then something that cost £45 going for £25. Plus I went into my local Topshop today to look at the sales and it had all gone a bit Primark in there, with clothes all over the floor and a huge queue. Although this is a bit of a generalisation it tends to be a bit more civilised in a department store and people do tend to be a bit more spread out. But don't take my word for it.

Pyjama Wonderland

I seem to have lost the ability to dress myself. Obviously not in the most basic sense of putting clothes on my body and covering myself, more in the sense of doing it in a stylish way and putting together an outfit that actually looks good and works. Between the misery of the cold, dark mornings, the stressfulness of work and the urge to hibernate I just don't have the energy to do anything other then sleep. As soon as I get in from work I'm straight out of my clothes and into my pyjamas and if I had the choice I reckon I would stay in them all the time. Unfortunately I don't have this choice as I have to go to work and they have rules about what I can wear, and my pyjamas do no count as a choice. When it's cold all you want to do is be as warm as possible, when you're sat at a desk all day all you want is to be as comfortable as possible. Warm and comfy does not equal stylish, or at least I can't seem to make it add up. I either end up shivering in dresses and tights or looking slightly odd in far too many layers of knitwear. I don't seem to have the energy for high heels and seem to alternate between two pairs of shoes, a pair of biker boots and a pair of trainers that I swap out for ballet pumps once inside. Plus why do all the stylish shoes this season seem to come without toes?
What I need is some super stylish pyjamas, maybe something that resembles a Le smoking tux, then I could just wear it all the time. I may need more then one set though.

Strike a Pose

There is no denying it, we live in a celebrity obsessed world. They look out at you from the T.V when you turn it on, down on you from the shelves of your local newsagents and their names pop out at you every time you go online. And they know how you feel about them because they are totally cashing in on it. If your a fan of Victoria Beckham, you can wear shades from her sunglasses line, jeans from her denim range, a dress from her new line of those, you can read her biography as well as her book about style, and spray yourself in one of her perfumes as well. And those are just the things that have her name on them, never mind all the things she's endorsed and all the fashion labels she's known to wear. She's even had a guest appearance on Ugly Betty. In short, she may well be a person but she's also a brand and mostly a fashion brand. I have to admit that I have a sort of admiration for Mrs Beckham, she has previously stated that she was never the greatest singer but that she loves fashion and now has the opportunity to turn her hand to that. I'm not a fan as such and don't own any of the above things that's she's put on the market, I just admire her for being honest about who she is and what she does. She seems to genuinely love fashion and although her style might not be to every one's taste, she's doing her own thing and I'll always respect that. Plus I'll always admire a woman who takes the rubbish out in 5 inch stilettos and if she ever actually takes out the rubbish I'm sure she does it in heels.
However I think fashion's love affair with celebrity has gone a bit far and in the last week there were a few examples that proved this to me. One: Cheryl Cole will be on the cover of Vogue in the new year, Two Madonna will be featured in the new Louis Vuitton campaign, and Three Pamela Anderson will be in the new Vivienne Westwood advertising campaign. All of these facts left me baffled. The first two are pure, unadulterated and disappointing attempts to make more money. These two woman have been featured in the press a huge amount in 2008, both for their marital problems. Madonna's divorce is one of the biggest celeb stories of the year and it's disappointing to me that two well-respected names in fashion would sink this low to sell a few more mags and bags. The third thing, well that's just completely random and I will reserve judgement until I see the ad's because usually Queen Westwood gets it right. All in all I just think that it's all a bit excessive and that far too many talented 'normal' folk in the fashion industry are losing work to these famous people who already have enough money.

Westside to Westfield

Given my experiences of shopping as described in the previous post it would seem weird that so soon after that wild, wet and windy day on Oxford Street I would be back to battling with any kind of retail experience. However with my mum still visiting it seemed like a good idea last Monday to check out the new Westfield centre in Shepherd's Bush. Given that it was a Monday I figured it wouldn't be as busy as it would have been that Saturday and given that it was all indoors I figured we would be safe from the elements. I was right on both accounts. It's an absolute giant of a place and at first I thought I would never find my way around never mind back out again but with the aid of one of there maps I was soon sure of where I was and where I wanted to go. Its well laid out with the four large department stores each having a corner. The thing about it that is so great is that everything is there. In central London you would find yourself having to go from one end of Oxford Street to the other to get to the shops you wanted to go to. Westfield makes it all a little more pleasurable. One thing that was a little disappointing was that the majority of the designer stores hadn't opened yet, although they all seem to be moving in before Christmas. Those are the stores that will lift Westfield above the other big shopping centres, like Bluewater, and give it something worth going for, even if it's just to leave dirty hand prints on the windows of Prada.
I plan to return there soon to do my Christmas shopping, safe and warm and dry and with a Yo Sushi to reward myself at after I'm done.

Shop til you drop dead.

As I get older, which is a depressing enough thing to be dealing with as it is, I have also discovered another depressing thing: I am starting to dislike shopping. Not the actual spending of money, that bit is still far too fun for my bank accounts liking, but the actual act of shopping. Attempting to deal with Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon in a downpour that was accompanied by a gail, I realised that I'd rather be tucked up in a bed with a good book or at least in a warm coffee shop with a muffin and a mocha. I was with my mum who was visiting and I was attempting to find her Christmas present for me. It was a bit of a nightmare. Between the horrendous weather, the umbrellas getting blown inside out and then dripping all over slidy shop floors it was just all a bit too much to be bothered with. It's a bit sad really. As a teenager I loved to go shopping and found it wonderful fun no matter what the weather. Sometimes I'd only come back with a Rimmel nail polish but my god I'd had some fun.
Now it just feels too much like a chore and the fact that pretty much everything you could ever need or want can be bought from the comfort of your sofa and then delivered to your house makes shopping seem even more pointless. I used to say that no matter how great the Internet got I would still love to see the clothes hanging from rails and be able to try them on before handing over any of my hard earned cash. Now I'm not so sure. It feels too much of a battle.
Having said that I did get the most beautiful Diesel leather jacket, made of wonderfully buttery soft leather. I saw it in Selfridges and feel madly in love with it, fortunately my mum did too and it now hangs in the second wardrobe of my flat, next to my favourite vintage dress. I did a quick online search and after about 10 minutes of getting a bit lost on the Diesel website, I discovered it on the ASOS site. So in theory I didn't need to be subjected to the madness in order to have it. However I do have to wonder if I would have got the same buzz from trying it on for the first time.

Pink Ladies

Today marks amongst other things the final day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The final day is known as 'Dare to wear it pink', which means donating £2 to the charity and wearing an item of pink for the day. My office, being in the world of healthcare as it is, decided to embrace this idea and get us in pink. Now I am not a fan of this shade, not in any sense. The only place I wear it is on my face, in blusher or eyeshadow. I'm more of a black and grey kind of girl and I am just not into pink at all, purple yes, pink no. In fact I only have one pink item of clothing in my wardrobe and before today I'd never actually worn it. It just kind of hung there next to all the black, waiting for a day when I might feel like wearing it. That day has yet to arrive but for today I am wearing it. I feel and no doubt look a bit daft but since everyone else, including most of the boys, is wearing pink at least I'm not the only one who looks a bit silly.
The thing that I dislike so much about pink is what is represents. I recently read an interesting article by Germaine Greer about pink and although her opinion was pretty extreme I do kind of agree with her. Pink is the colour of Barbie, it's the defining colour of girlieness and when I meet a blonde-haired girl (they always seem to be blonde, I don't think I've ever met a brunette who was heavily in to pink) who loves pink I can't help but take a bit of an instant dislike to her. It just seems so silly and well annoyingly girlie to like pink. When we were told about wearing pink for today I was so very relieved when the girls I work beside had no idea what they were going to wear, they were like me!!! The only reason I had any idea of what to wear is because it's the only pink piece of clothing I own.
Pink hasn't really been in fashion for a while either, it occasionally pops up on the catwalk but usually alongside something else and usually with a heavy dose of irony. Very rarely will you see a fashion show that is just a massive overload of pink. It's just not really the colour of a modern woman. It is the colour of Barbie, who maybe a popstar/moviestar/politican/cowgirl/businesswoman and who knows however many jobs she's had but she's most definitely not the definition of a modern woman. Although I am more than willing to put my two quid in the pot and wear pink for a good cause, I get the feeling that my pink jumper will be returning to it's rightful place on the bottom of my wardrobe at the end of the day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2007/nov/05/whyhastheworldgonepinkma

My New Home

You could freakin' live in it and I kind of want to!!

"It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it".

This blog was started basically so that I could have a place to rant when my love of fashion gets dismissed, ignored or insulted. However having recently found somewhere where loving fashion doesn't get me funny looks I've not felt the need to rant so much and have just been writing more general thoughts on here. However the rant is back.
Like most people I'm not really being myself at my work. No matter what your job is you have to wear a certain thing, conduct yourself in a certain way and get on with the job you are paid to do. That goes without saying. However when you do your job purely because it pays the bills and when people keep telling you that your lucky just to have a job because of the current state of the economy, you can't help but feel trapped in a job you didn't ever really want. Especially when that job doesn't fulfill you. Recently I have been enjoying a rather creative period and have been writing regulary, usually feeling pretty proud of the end result. However all that creativity just highlights how unfulfilling I find the 9 to 5. Those who are lucky enough to earn money out of the thing they love should appreciate every single moment of the experience. Whenever I hear a creative person say that they could never handle the 9 to 5, I feel like yelling at them, because I can't handle it either but I don't have a lot of choice, I hope my situation will change and I really hope that if it does I'm grateful for it. But right now the day to day grind is getting to me because I feel this urge to be creative and I have to stifle it and write memos instead. One of the biggest problems is not being around like-minded people. At least if you can spent your lunch hour talking about the latest fashion week and which shows you liked it makes the day go that little bit faster. I don't even get that. I bought the latest edition of American Vogue the other day and decided to take it to work to read during my lunch hour, a way to enjoy a type of creativity at the office. As I was heading back to my desk with the magazine tucked under my arm one of the girls I worked with was heading out to the staff room with her lunch. She asked me if I was still reading my magazine or if you could borrow it. I told her she could borrow it if she wanted and told her what magazine it was. Her response was to screw up her face and tell me she'd pass. I wasn't particularly surprised, if I'd had the latest copy of Heat I can almost guarantee that she'd be interested in that. American Vogue not so much. I wasn't disappointed, angry or anything, in fact if she had eagerly grabbed it out my hands I would have been really surprised. I just really wished I worked with people who didn't turn their nose up at one of the best magazines on the shelves, without even a second thought. I just felt genuinely sad that this was the situation I found myself in. I returned to my desk and my letters, holding onto my Vogue for all I was worth. At that moment it was the only thing keeping me afloat.

Fashion Victim

The fashion industry is huge, from those who work in your local Primark to the creative directors and fashion designers of the most well known luxury brands. Its not surprising then that its the second biggest industry in Europe. I'm not alone in noticing though how it seems to just keep getting bigger and bigger. A few years ago there was no store like Primark, offering ridiculously cheap, throw away fashion. If it was cheap it was completely dated, bad fitting and ugly. Suddenly most of the stores on the High Street can keep up with the fashion designers showing at Fashion Week. In the past most people shopped on the High Street because they couldn't afford the high-end clothes. Now the High Street is a shopping destination in itself. With fashion designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Stella Macartney, Roberto Cavalli, Emma Cook and Giles Deacon having all designed lines for High Street stores, lines that are priced the same as the other products in the store. Celebrities are now joining in on the act as well, it seems there are very few celebs who don't have their own line. Some of them, like Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B line, are more fashion forward, stylish and worth investing in, others like lines by the girls who star in reality show, The Hills, just aren't even worth mentioning.

No matter where you look fashion is there, it's even invading the televison. After the Clothes Show disappeared, (a programme I loved growing up), there really wasn't another programme looking at the world of fashion in any way. There might have been the odd documentry on a particular part of the fashion world, but the magazine style show had disappeared. Suddenly there's several cropping up, again the standard is varied. There are more fashion magazines, several glossy weeklies along with all the monthlies that have been around for years. You can't even go for your weekly food shop without seeing fashion, as all the major supermarkets have there own clothing lines now.

Now I'm not complaining or anything, after all this is the industry I want to work in so the bigger it gets the more jobs there are. Also if the standard of the High Street is high it means there is so much more choice and it makes shopping even more fun. What I can't help wondering though is; how far is this going to go and how long for?
With all the recent financial problems there have been, even the cheaper side of fashion might seem like a rather frivolous thing to be spending your money on. Even if that's not the case and people still spend money on clothes to help them forget about the stresses of life, surely there are only so many magazines and T.V shows that we can be bothered with. Over saturation of any market allows the consumer to be picky about how and where they spent their time and money. Fashion is an industry that in difficult times still continues to grow and at the moment is showing no signs of stopping. But you only have to look at the music industry to see how things can change. There have been several music retailers facing reduced profits or just folding altogether in recent years as they struggled to compete with online home delivery or downloading sites. With more and more fashion stores having websites and great online stores like asos.com and net-a-porter, surely at some point there has to be a victim. As much as it's great to see the industry grow and expand there has to be a saturation point and I can't help but worry what will happen then. In the meantime though I'm just gonna put on my Giles Deacon for New Look tee and my Emma Cook for Topshop boots and say a little prayer to the fashion gods that things level out. Cause where we are right now is pretty damn good.

It must be love

Say Hello to my new shoes!!!

I think it's love.

Fall from Grace

Although my previous posts have proved that I have a bit of a love affair with shoes, particularly ones with big platforms and high heels I have been wondering recently about how high we can actually go.
If you've been paying attention to this current run of Fashion Weeks it would appear that the high heel is here to stay. There have been at last count, 5 models whose bums have met the catwalk in recent weeks as they've been toppled by their shoes. It happened at Prada and Pucci amongst others and we haven't even had Paris yet. So if models, people whose job it is to walk and look good doing it, can't stay upright what hope do the rest of us mere mortals have?

Don't get me wrong I love heels and will wear them at the most inappropriate time and place, given the choice between a pair of flats or a pair of platforms in a shop I'll pick the platforms, even if I know I can't walk very far in them. However I know my limits, five inches is the most I can cope with and even then I prefer to know exactly how far I will be expected to walk. But I still love my heels and being only 5ft 2 rely on them to take my up to the same level as the rest of the world.
But as much as I love heels I do know that around 379,000 woman are injured by shoes every year and that they cause an seemingly endless list of health problems. However when I read an article telling me that woman should stick to heels of 1.5 inches or less I yell at the computer screen and assume that the article is written by a man (I'm usually right).

Basically what I'm trying to say is: high heels are truely wonderful but there is nothing wonderful about falling on your butt whilst wearing them. So if fashion tells us to go higher and higher where will it end? Will it get to the point where shoes will have a health warning on the box, like cigarettes? Or will people start sueing Prada when they fall over and hurt themselves in the new seasons shoes?
They say "no pain, no gain" but how far are we willing to go in the name of fashion?

Worship

These are too good for words.

Give me a chance to shine and I'll blind the world.

Fashion is about creativity. Well duh, right? But for some people the way they dress hasn't got anything to do with creativity and more to do with covering the bits of themselves they don't want people to see. Which is all well and good if you're not a particularly creative person. I often think it would be better not to be a creative person, I might not want so much Chanel. Plus one thing I have noticed about being creative is that the number of jobs that allow you to express that side of yourself are well, limited. As I've moaned about in previous posts being told what to wear to work doesn't allow you to be creative in what you wear, but doing the dry day to day tasks that working in administration requires also doesn't allow you to express yourself. So you sit there, typing out the same letter over and over again, or endlessly photocopying and you can almost feel the cobwebs starting to form around your brain. Or at least I can. The biggest problem is that when you stop being creative for 37.5 hours a week of your life its seems to make it even harder to be creative outside of those hours. All I seem able to do is slump in front of the telly and hurl abuse at the uncreative programming. Which gets me nowhere.
So I decided to start an evening course which I hoped would blow the cobwebs away and it has almost instantly. Except now I'm in the postion where I can't get the thoughts down as and when they form because I am far too busy photocopying and picking out outfits that won't cause offence. Which therefore leads to frustration, which really has got to be better then apathy but is still well, frustrating. The outcome of this moan is that I need to be creative and surely if someone wants to create something from nothing and produce something that is orginal because it came from them then surely that shouldn't be stifled. Why are people discouraged from doing what they're good at? Those who are good at photocopying and writing minutes and playing office politics should be allowed to get on with it and those who love to write or design or draw or paint or whatever should be allowed to get on with that and give the world the things they create. Whats so wrong with that?

If the shoe fits.

Diamonds might have been Marilyn's best friend but she also understood the power and the joy of another of womans dearest companions: shoes. Apparently Marilyn used to get her cobbler to shave half an inch off of one of her heels to make her wiggle even more wiggly. Perhaps a little extreme but what it shows is that she understood the power of heels. A pair of heels can transform an outfit, but they can also transform a person too. They make you walk with confidence and sure some men love them, Marilyn knew that.
The thing is though, nowadays its not just about grabbing mens attention, its about what they do for us girls. One of the best feelings in the world is using your own hard-earned cash to buy those dream shoes, no matter what your budget is. Its nearly impossible to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes us love shoes so much, we just do. However sometimes life doesn't make it easy to keep up the love affair and I don't just mean financially.
Problem number 1: public transport. If you live in a city you probably don't own a car, its just not really worth it. Therefore you have to rely on the dreaded public transport. In London public transport is pretty good, buses, tubes and trains that go pretty much everywhere you could need to go. However dealing with public transport does mean climbing up and down stairs, trying to stand up on a bus jerking over potholes and braking unexpectantly, endless standing around on escalators and walking from stop to stop. High heels do not mix with any of these things. Carrying ballet pumps in your handbag is the norm now. Even worse are those woman who feel that the only way to cope with public transport is to wear ugly gym-only trainers with their smart office wear and their heels relegated to a plastic bag. Which is just plain sad. However how to negotiate the journey to work in heels is still a bit of a problem when a bus or tube is involved.
Problem number 2: walking. Maybe its just the area that I live in but it seems to me that pavements have become pretty dangerous places. Tree roots that are trying to force their way through the concrete, different types of paving all fighting with each other, pavement potholes and slopes all seem to make it seem like the only safe form of footwear is hiking boots, not a pair of four-inch heels. In fact on the way to a job interview one day in a pair of four-inch heeled boots I went over my ankle on a bit of dodgy pavement and sprained my ankle. Now I just pay a bit more attention to where I'm walking and take the risk. I love my shoes too much. Not just the dodgy pavements but the amount of walking that seems to be needed to get anywhere and which always seems to result in sore feet and blisters. Getting taxis everywhere might be alright for the SATC girls but for us normal folk its not always an option. It seems us shoe-loving ladies have two options, face the pain and wear them anyway or go for some pretty flats and get used to people commenting on how short you seem.

Birkin' mad

So I created this blog to have a place to rant about my attempts to have fashion in my life on a day to day basis despite the worlds attempts to stop me and force me into the same boring old clothes day after day. However this particular rant is more aimed at others as sometimes well life is unfair and sometimes we need to moan about that.
Whilst at work recently (stuck in the uniform mentioned previously), I spotted a Birkin. Now if your reading this blog then you really should know what one of those is, so I'm not going to go into details about this most famous of bags. What I am going to tell you is that said Birkin was being carried around proudly by a woman in a rather awful black tracksuit and some nasty trainers. So this leads me to my rant. Do people think that if they carry a designer bag, the more expensive the better, it means that they can let the rest of themselves go. Is carrying a Birkin, which carries with it a whole load of messages, a great excuse to just shove on whatever old thing is lying around and head out the door, holding your head up high because although you look like crap, your carrying a Birkin therefore you must be better then everyone else.

To me the girl who has made an effort with her complete outfit, and spent a bit of time expressing her personality through her clothes, no matter what price they were, is more fashionable then the woman with an expensive handbag and the ugly tracksuit. Even if I don't like what shes wearing, if shes making a statement and expressing herself through what shes wearing then the girl whose made some effort gets my respect.
A Hermes Birkin is the ultimate luxury handbag. They are hand-crafted, made and delivered to the Hermes stores at random and require you either signing up to a waiting list or being famous. Carrying one says 'I have enough money to spent on one of these and I actually managed to get one'. It has status and screams wealth, however carrying one does not automatically give you taste or fashion sense.

I also had another thought as I admired the bag, and that was that surely the bag deserved better. I'm not saying you have to dress in couture for a trip to the shops but if you're going to carry the Birkin then surely you could make a tiny bit more effort. Nice dark jeans and a crisp white shirt would look classy and is easy to pull together.

Fashion is about style, its about expressing yourself and who you are. Wearing labels should be done with an appreciation for the designer and the other creators behind what you are wearing. Fashion is not about shoving an expensive handbag on your arm and forgetting the rest. Fashion is about creation, imagination and style. Wearing a Birkin with a tracksuit says many, many things, but style is not one of them.

Uniformity.

This post/rant is provoked, surprise, surprise by work. Not however on the actual act of work but on fashion in the workplace. Much like my previous post on the whole nothing but the suit problem, it is hard to express yourself with your clothes when you are so limited by rules and regulations. Where I currently work I have to wear a uniform and beyond that there are yet more rules about what you can wear to accompany that uniform. I understand all the rules and the reasons behind them, as always, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about them. Some people like a uniform as it makes dressing easy for them, they wear what they're told and thats that. Those of us that love fashion have other ideas and like to have some freedom of choice on what we put on in the morning. The main point of a uniform is to make everyone look the same, which to me is a majorly depressing thought. I know that its for a reason in a job so that you look like you work there and aren't just wandering around but there is little freedom in that uniformity and after a while it gets depressing always wearing the same thing. Every morning I look at the clothes hanging in my wardrobe, the odd thing still with tags on and wish I could get the chance to wear them and then go back to the same old thing and trudge out the door.
The uniform is, for anyone who loves clothes and fashion very frustrating and when companies make no effort to make them flattering or fashionable it makes it even harder. What can you do with a unfitted, unflattering shirt in a colour that doesn't always go with everything and that isn't even in your size?
I remember many, many years ago when the dated and not very pleasant Brownies uniform was given a fashion makeover by Jeff Banks. The button up dark brown dress was gone and in its place, polo shirts, hoodies, and t-shirts that were more modern and much more appropriate for young girls and all the activities that being in the Brownies involves. So why don't companies that have uniforms do something similar, why not look at what would look smart and professional, what would make the staff look and feel good and therefore perhaps work with more enthusiasm. Companies just go for what is cheap and easy to produce and the staff just put up with it. All those years at school where you rolled your skirt up to make it shorter, wore the biggest high heels you could and made the most out of things like bags and pencil cases are gone and so they should be. After school the uniform should be no more. Once you become an adult your clothing should be your own choice and that freedom should be there to let you have fun with who you are and the clothes you wear.

Technorati Profile

Not so Suited and Booted.

So the blog, something this wannabe writer should have embraced quite some time ago. Lack of inspiration, lack of motivation, who knows what else I can blame it on but here I am now with a blog where I will document my stuggle for fashion. I, as Gwen Stefani once sang, am "just a girl", living my life and stuggling to find a place for my love of fashion in my days. Between long working hours, having to function on public transport on a day-to-day basis and living in suburbia, there never seems to be a chance for me to really dress they way I want, to really cut loose and enjoy fashion in all its forms.
I love clothes, shoes, bags, jewellery, make-up and everything else that comes with. I devour fashion magazines, visit all the best websites and love to shop, especially when the seasons change and all the pretty new things are coming in to stock.

However my love of fashion, in particular the more extreme side of it, piles and piles of costume jewellery, big, big heels, combining prints and just in general experimenting with clothes as much as I can, all these things don't seem to be allowed. Uniforms, long walks, rules and regulations always seem to stop me from being myself. This is where I will turn to rant and rave and get all my moans off my chest.

My first gripe was triggered by a job interview I went to recently. I turned up on time, looking very smart in a pair of wide leg smart black trousers, a white shirt pulled in with thin red belt and a pair of patent black closed toe heels. I knew I had to look smart and pretty much a blank canvas, job interviews are most definetly not the place to express yourself through fashion. I thought I pretty much hit the nail on the head for a smart interview look and the woman who interviewed me seemed to really like me and told me I'd be back for a second interview, however she requested that I wear a suit for the occasion and then informed me that I would be expected to wear a suit every day on the job. This is not a high-powered position, its more front of house and although I understand that its important to be smartly dressed if you are the first person the client sees, I also understand that there are many, many ways for a woman to look smart without having to wear a suit.





I don't really like suits, for myself. Certain suits on certain people look great. A handsome man in a well made suit is always a welcome sight. A classic womans Yves Saint Laurent trouser suit looks fantastic and on occasion a suit is the right thing to wear. However finding a suit to fit me has always proved impossible and as of right now I only have one, which is quite masculine in its shape and really just drowns my 5ft 2 frame. In order to take this job I would need to invest in a new suit and to get a good one I would have to spend a reasonable sum of money, something that right now I'm not sure I'm prepared to do given that I would rather spend my hard-earned cash on completely unpractical but fabulous shoes and bags that don't fit all the essentials in them.

My main problem with this whole thing is that I find it ridiculous that a company can tell a person what to wear and not provide those clothes. They are basically asking me to wear a uniform so that their front of house staff present a consistant image. But yet they expect me to pay for this uniform out of my own pocket.
I know this means I get a bit more choice about what I wear but I don't want to wear the same clothes as them. I want to be myself and I would really like to wear some of the gorgeous and smart work clothes I have that aren't a suit. A suit to me is a statement and should be worn as such. It shouldn't be cheap and it shouldn't be a uniform.

I know that this isn't a creative job and therefore the freedoms of dress those kind of jobs allow are not going to be the same but really, is it much to ask to be allowed to be yourself for the 40 hours a week they expect you to be there for.

As for the job, well who knows? But their outdated and stupid rules are definetley putting me off this career move.