Tag Archives: barkins

On Second Thoughts….

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50

Dress: Barkins

Cardigan: Cocolatte

Shoes: Chie Mihara

 

I have a very small, very stuffed wardrobe that as you know I overhaul with great regularity.

Every so often I sell something, them immediately regret it and spend the next few months scouring the shops trying to replace it with the Exact. Same. Item.

It’s sort of an occupational hazard of having a serious shopping addiction habit. To make room for the new I have to retire the old.

This dress was a pretty close call – every time I do a big eBay sale I have at least one buyer who flakes at the last minute & doesn’t follow through with the purchase. The last time it was the buyer who had bid for this; my Satin Rises dress.

Lucky me, it turns out, because if she HAD paid up and I’d been able to post it off, I’d have been kicking myself when – a week later – I would spot this in the window of ultra-exclusive boutique Nicolangela:

It’s called “Nina”. It costs $545. According to the website “there are only 8 on the planet”.

Looks pretty similar, no?

I’ve actually got ANOTHER eBay sale going on at the moment if anyone’s interested. Wonder what I’m going to regret this time?!

Meanwhile, I’m having a bit of a hair dilemma: I’m starting to look for wedding hair styles, and am wondering whether or not to keep the fringe. If I want to swap out the blunt-cut bangs for a side-swept fringe I’ll have to start growing it out now. It’s long enough to shove to one side already, so I’m giving it a go. What did you think?

The hairstyle’s a pretty slapdash attempt at this Martha Stewart Side Chignon tutorial that Jessie McAwesome sent me.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the fringe. If you’ve been reading the blog long enough you’d know that getting the fringe was a statement. My Ex hated the fringe when I’d first had it cut in 2007 so I grew it out. Practically the first thing I did when we broke up was call my hairdresser and make an appointment to reinstate it. It wasn’t a fringe anymore, it was The Fringe.

Actually, I’m hankering for a full crop, but I want to keep the hair long because I’m envisaging an elegant up-do for the big day.

If I can wait that long… I’m looking at photos of my short-haired self in the archives and I’m pretty tempted to get the chop at my Hairy Godmother appointment next week!

 

I Am Disappoint

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Blouse: Asos

Cardigan: Cocolatte

Skirt: Laura Ashley

Boots: Duo Boots

Belt: Barkins

 

Asos, I am disappoint.

The first order I received from you was wonderful: It fit perfectly, it was excellent quality, it arrived quickly and it looked exactly like the picture.

My second, not so much.

To start with, in my typically impeccable timing, a 20% off code went out within 24 hours of me putting my order through. Not Asos’s fault really; if I were to blame anyone I should blame my own impatience. Secondly it took aaages to get to me. Again, not Asos’s fault – they are on the other side of the world after all.

I ordered two things, and neither of them met my expectations. Both were too big, and didn’t look like the pictures. But neither of them were quite disappointing enough to wear the return shipping costs to get a refund.

This blouse was one of them:

It looks lovely on the website, and I thought the combination of sheer shoulders, the pussy-bow, the blossomy pink colour, and the fact it didn’t have buttons would mean that the blouse would made it into regular rotation in my wardrobe.

In reality it’s a blouse that doesn’t do me any favours:

The colour’s right, but everything else is a bit Not Quite Right. Could be just because I’m so… generously endowed, but I think what went wrong is that Asos didn’t size up the chiffon part of the top. It means that the chiffon shoulders were a bare strip and the pussy-bow meagre compared to the smaller size.

One of the perils of internet shopping… you never know really what you’re going to get. Though I’m sure I’ll wear this blouse I’ll probably stick to using it as a layering piece as I have today.