Going wild for Wildfox.

I sometimes wonder at the price of Wildfox pieces and if it's justifiable. But season after season, they win me over and their gorgeous lookbooks endear their adorable collections even further. I'll probably continue to only purchase during sale season but the one item I own kind of sealed the deal - I wore it every few days for four or five months solid without any visible wear or tear and it's the softest tee I own. If you're looking for quality over quantity I can't recommend it more highly.

The Fall 2014 collection only added to my love for the brand. I wrote about a tee with "Mrs Darcy" emblazoned across it as a favourite a while back and the lookbook is ever more perfect. Themed around Anglomania, Regency patterns and sisterly affection, it's a treat for Austen and fashion fans alike. 

Damn, I really want that Mrs Darcy tee...

Let the pictures do the talking while I go swoon in a corner.

So do you agree - has this collection taken the brand to new and Wuthering heights?

Wide-Eyed and Blind Summer 2014 Lookbook - Summer Whites.

Hey! So, I'm pretty excited for this - my first lookbook! Summer to me is all about being light and airy and what with my tendency to never trust myself with the responsibility of wearing white and Wimbledon everywhere...well, I decided to go with three all-white (almost) looks. It's a pretty striking thing to wear, ensuring you stand out from the crowd and makes you look much more polished. Plus, it shows off any summer glow you might have going on.

I styled three different girls or three different facets of my style depending on how rigid you are to one look or not. One is uber-girly and cute, one is boyish and one has a little more bite to it - tipping my hat to my punk roots and all! Not all of the clothes are still available in stores but I'll note where things are recent purchases.

Enough babbling already! I hope you like my first lookbook.

(Italics indicate recently  purchase items.)

Dress - Charlise, Sliders - Heavenly Feet, Headband - Present from my sister, bought in Spain.

Cardigan - Primark, Tank - Illustrated People, Topshop, Trousers - Deck by Decollage, Shoes - Topshop, Headband - Tiger, Sunglasses, River Island.

Shirt - Pimark, Jeans - Paul Smith, Sunglasses - Topshop, Shoes - Next.

Which look is your favourite? 

New Inspiration - Cleo.

Cleo is a family-owned and run shop on Kildare Street in Dublin. Many will know it, will have passed by it many a time. It appears touristy and is, thus, easily written off but it has been an important part of dress in Ireland for near on a century now. I'll do a separate post soon on the store and the treasure trove that it is but today I want to talk about a catalogue they produced in the nineties.

One of my lecturers, Hilary O'Kelly, has just written a book on the store (the go-to for more info and a great read) and weeks ago she gave us a lecture on it as part of one of our modules and to test out the topic for talks. The story of the shop I walked by mindlessly on my way to work each week was fascinating. The clientele included (among many other fashion icons and celebrities) Mrs Cary Grant and Carmel Snow. It had moved with all the shifts in the Irish and international economy and had managed to survive when others had not. And then Hilary showed us the aforementioned catalogue images. If I wasn't hooked already, this was the deal-breaker. It was like clouds clearing in my mind, a eureka moment. Here was what I had been looking for. Practicality. Ease. Timelessness. Rugged beauty.

The images were photographed by the now acclaimed Mike Bunn and styled by Elizabeth Clare with the Irish countryside of Delphi, Co Mayo as its backdrop. They are rich, striking images that may not be "fashionable" but are certainly stylish. It's a world that sucks me in, one where we invest in pieces and things last. Where there's that Hemingway sense of "honesty". Where tradition lives and breathes around us and beauty is in embracing the natural.

The images just speak to me in ways I cannot even express. They excite me. Make me want to invest in knitwear come A/W and try something not new but new to me. The way of dressing aligns with my love of normcore and restraint but with a fresh spin on it that's less gimmick more like growing up. Or perhaps I'm admitting that, at heart, I'm a little bit of a hippy.

Either which way, enjoy. Be captivated and join my little club of imagination where climbing mountains isn't sweaty, icky work and roaming the enchanting wilderness of Ireland styled in kniwear to perfection is totally commonplace.

Check Cleo out on facebook and do pop in! Anyone else feeling the clothes as much as me?

(Images courtesy of Cleo)

A stroke of genius.

I love art. I love fashion. I love when those two worlds collide. Ergo, Peter Lippmann's imagery for the Christian Louboutin S/S 2014 collections has me DYING. Love, love, love. It's not the first time the brand and photographer have worked together but this particular lookbook is achingly lovely.

I may not be the biggest still life fan but it's funny how enlivened they are when you stick a hot accessory in the mix. Each image references a great master from Brueghel up to Van Gogh. And I'm having such a Van Gogh moment.

Dang.

(Just three of the images. From Elle UK. Go here to see more.)

Tide-Dye.

We Are Islanders is an Irish design collective made up of a designer, Rosie O'Reilly, a producer, Kate Nolan and a communications expert, Deirdre Hynds. As well as having innovative ideas for design and production, the label is all about sustainability. This intrigued me greatly, the first time I heard about the label, because being kinder to the earth is always something I'm all for. The performative aspect of the label - they dyed some pieces using the tide - and the fact that the A/W 2013 collection debuted in the RHA gallery is also fascinating. I do love when fashion and art collide. Therefore, I was super-excited to receive an email with images and deets on what they've been up to!

4/704 from ALONG CAME A SPIDER on Vimeo.

The pieces below are so amazing and modern and wearable and quietly lovely. I want them all. And I really wish I got this email sooner as black and white is the dress code for my grad in a couple of days - an outfit would have been sorted so much more easily!

Love, love, love.

Find the online store here.

Manic about MANIAMANIA

Lookbooks now rival editorials on a regular basis. It's not just making the clothes look good and buyable. It's an artform, a mood. I am LOVING MANIAMANIA's Autumn 2013 lookbook. The campaign is comprised of stills and a vid inspired by 1930s actress Theda Bara (known for her gothic tendencies) and star Ruby Jean Wilson. The video, with its use of witchy animals such as owls and snakes has reminded some of Harry Potter or anything witch-like, but the stills remind me more of dutch painting. The lighting and still life elements wouldn't be amiss in 16th century oils and momenti morii such as grapes are included. There's a dark, sad beauty about the images that I'm crazy for.

So much so, that I almost overlooked the jewellery being showcased itself. Almost. It would so fit in my wardrobe.

My Amsterdam Look

I'm doing a module in Northern Painting this year and I also had a reader suggest I enter an awesome easyJet competition asking bloggers to come up with looks inspired by Amsterdam so I thought "Why not?". I said I'd give it a stab and label it "study".

When I think of Amsterdam (despite never having been there), I am dually inspired by both the old and new.

The old (the buildings, the Vermeers and Rembrandts which immediately come to mind) is opulent but restrained, pious but sensuous and with an eye for detail and so it was a great opportunity to use the abundance of Baroque-inspired clothes in stores at the moment to put an outfit together. The result is a decadent outfit composed of a gold and red palette, velvet, jewels and pearls - perfect for randomly looking way over-dressed! (PS As an art historian I know how problematic the term "baroque" actually is and that the works below don't even really fall under this title at all so I'm using it in a very vague, fashion-trend specific sense here!)

1. Dolce and Gabbana 2.Alexander McQueen 3. Topshop 4. Dolce and Gabbana

The new inspired the day looks. The street style of Amsterdam is majorly inspiring - so urban, so contemporary, so easy, so cool. It's an aesthetic I love; simple, rad clothes that are easy to wear and have clean lines. And it inspired the below; two chic outfits for ambling round the city like an It Girl.

1. Zara 2. Jil Sander 3. Zara 4. Topshop 5. JW Anderson 6. Jil Sander 7. Isabel Marant

But, yeah, it was mostly just fun to put outfits I can't afford together. Oh, and to creep on street style...I mean "study". It was fun to "study".