IKEA. For the boring hipster.

I love my local Action Cancer shop. They have a pretty quick stock turnover, and I’ve seen Dolce & Gabbana blazers rubbing shoulders with hand knitted cardigans. People tend to criticise small villages, but they can be something of a fashion melting pot, especially if they are reasonably touristy.

I played it reasonably safe, but I was pretty chuffed to find this red Next dipped hem skirt, for £2.50, and this soft, fine knit Oasis jumper for £1

I wore it (I’m not going to say “teamed it” cos I will sound a bit silly) with my brown cord La Redoute jacket, a charity shop find from last Autumn. My mum got me the Vittorio bag for my last birthday. Tights are from H&M, ankle boots…Can’t remember. International, possibly?

Apparently you aren’t meant to mix brown and black, but oh look, I just did. Bite me.

So this was the outfit for a big city run up to Ikea, for a new mat. It’s sage green pile. Told you I had no taste

A girl has to look good for an Ikea trip though. Some of those yummy mummies herding kids into Smaland look like they’ve just stepped off some Swedish catwalk.

Anyway. Thoughts and opinions on black and brown mixing are welcome. Convince me it’s not OK

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Clothes + me = trouble

“Oh, her? She would be pretty, if it weren’t for the weird clothes”

A guy called Alex, critiquing fourteen-year-old me. Harsh, but probably an accurate summary of my fashion sense, and the effect it had on other people.

I’ve always had a fondness for long, swishy skirts, wool, comfy shoes, and for a few memorable years, jodhpurs and hacking jackets.

One of my favourite books, then as now, was Louisa M. Alcott’s “An Old Fashioned Girl”. Reading it back as an adult, I can see why it was so appealing to my preteen and adolescent self. The heroine is a country mouse, who spends most of the book in a state of utter confusion as to why people would WANT to wear corsets, itchy lace, and other uncomfortable, restricting fashion paraphernalia. Why not wear loose, airy skirts you can run in? They can still be pretty, can’t they? With bright patterns, beautiful material?

Apparently not. I have it on good authority that I was known as “granny skirt girl” by the aforementioned Alex and his chums

I still don’t understand why people make themselves deliberately uncomfortable in the name of beauty. I don’t get why six inch heels are good and my swishy granny skirts are bad. I find it utterly baffling that some people will pay the equivalent of my rent on an item of pure itch, that they will wear for a few months, then discard.

It doesn’t fit with my ethos, or my budget.

However, I appreciate that, like it or not, how you look does matter. I love my Laura Ingalls prairie dresses, but they are just not appropriate for me to wear to work, or to an interview

That doesn’t mean I’m going to spend a lot of money on clothes. That, to me,is still a bit of a waste

So most of my clothes are second hand, eBay or charity shops. As I’m leaving the early 20s student stage of life, I want to look a little more polished and capable, but I don’t want to change my clothes shopping habits as a result

This blog is a way of documenting my new style, while celebrating the best bits of the old one