Of course not, I'm way too old for Prom! (in other words: be my date?) Still, dresses for Summer Balls are occupying my brain more than they should be with several exams yet to go. If I could find a combination of any of these, that would be just great! A kind of home-delivered, ready to wear Schiaparelli Shirley Suicidal Supermodel sandwich... Thanks in advance, fashion gods!
Imagine being the couple on this Life cover? I hope they got married and had lots of babies.
Top 10 picks from the only Tumblr in the world that actually smells like a Charity Shop.
Meanwhile, somewhere, the Sartorialist wakes up in a cold sweat, realising with some relief that his platform-shod, polyester-clod pursuers of the night before were all just a horrible dream.
I think I might have some trouble turning this into a series of 'From 80s cartoon to Catwalk to surprisingly good High Street stores' (did somebody say Bananapradaman?) but I might just give it a shot. Here goes:
From Rainbow Brite...
To Rainbow Brightest...
To Rainbow Brights again.
Earlier this year, Christopher Kane's Resort collection had us fashion girls craving rainbow brights harder than even our Punkyfish prone 13 yr-old selves could have envisaged. Luckily, purveyor of 'Brit Girls 'Pon Town' dresses Motel offers their distinctly less $$$ version with various multicolour items on sale. So now we can all be as blindingly stylish as everyone's favourite 80s Acid House chick, Rainbow Brite. Hoo-rah.
Now for Part 2 of a little series I like to call Surprisingly Fruitful eBay Search Terms - and no, for once, I'm not talking about fruity print clothing (having said that, check out my latest, greatest and juiciest ebay find...)
Instead, here's another top tip for Ebay bargain hunters and huntresses like myself out there. This week:
2) 'Avant Garde'
Now, I'm not the sort of person who would describe my own dress sense as Avant Garde. According to Wikipedia, 'The term is used in English as a noun or adjective to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.'
Who knows, maybe there's a chance that other people would like to refer to Young Shields as an Avant Garde blog - and, by association, myself as an Avant Garde blogger. Perhaps my use of the Apocalypse Now typeface in a fashion blog is, in itself, innovative.
But I'm still not the sort of person who would describe myself as avant garde. There is a sort of person who would feel comfortable doing this out there, and I imagine them as such: a woman in her 40s or 50s, perhaps, who enjoys wearing tailored pieces from her own independent boutique, which sells Gothic-cum-Ladylike pieces and smells faintly of incense. She has a few cats. Perhaps she has bleached her avant-garde hairdo too many times and has now taken to dying her cats' hairs pink, too. I might be able to have a conversation with her on the subject of tie-dye, but not much else.
An avant-garde couple
CAN YOU SEE THIS AVANT GARDE CREATURE NOW? Now imagine what happens when this woman decides to sell a few pieces on eBay. What is the natural description to be attached to her clothing - clothing that, indeed, perfectly meets the Hipster Girl's sartorial needs today? Well, her tie-dye, 70s platform shoes, leather-bordering-on-fetish gear, collars and various feathered items all have one thing in common...
Some nice avant garde items going cheap on Ebay
...they're only bloody Avant Garde! Trust me - as a search term, its gold. You'll look as a-garde as Grimes in no time!
THIS JUST IN: WIDELY DERIDED RAPPER-TURNED-FASHIONISTO WEST RELEASES ANOTHER COLLECTION OF HEAVY BLACK LEATHER. CELEBRATES WITH GO-KARTING FINALE AND KIM KARDASHIAN.
TWIST: CONTROVERSIAL LOOK SPORTED BY FASHION BLOGGER 16 YEARS PREVIOUSLY:
When the lovely Charlie from Urban Outfitters kindly offered to show me round the new collections in their Oxford Circus store a few weeks ago, I hopped, skipped and jumped at the chance. Here's what I learnt:
Antipodium is new to Urban Outfitters this season - I was loving this t-shirt dress with a print made up of angry cats and dogs. It like, totally makes a print out of animals - but not as we know it. Awesome.
Among some bits I got to choose to take away with me was this polka dot shirt with spiky tipped collars. I later offset the sheer fierceness with teddy bears. Hanger: stylist's own ;-)
But the best part of my trip was discovering the most close-to-perfect dress known to man, in the form of this snake-print number from Vaudeville & Burlesque. It fits, it flares, it has bloody great pockets.
In my head, this is what it felt like:
All in all, an adventurous time. Also for some lols head to the Oxford Circus store at the moment, where amongst some heavy refurbishments some makeshift wooden changing rooms have been set up. Picture changing rooms with no roofs on, and then picture builders working on the ceiling, and you'll see what I mean.
THIS JUST IN: WIDELY ADORED RAF SIMONS TO LEAVE JIL SANDER (POSSIBLY BUT NOT DEFINITELY FOR DIOR). CELEBRATES WITH EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF COATS WITH NO BUTTONS.
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