Cuffedochinos

 Top: Tirelli

Trousers: Yours Clothing

Belt: City Chic

Shoes: FitFlops

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Etc! Etc!

Can you believe it’s 2018 already? Yeah, me neither.

Last year was a bit of a write-off, to be honest, but it ended in an absolute BANG with the Mister and I finally making an offer on our Very Own House.

We booked the truck, packed the boxes, and made the move, all in the whirlwind lead-up to Christmas, so you’ll have to excuse my absence over the holiday period. It’s been a busy couple of months.

2018’s New Year’s Resolutions include Try to Blog More Often (I used to blog three times a week. A WEEK. Surely I can manage at least once a fortnight.) Now that we’re not madly saving for a house deposit and spending our weekends at open houses I should have a bit more time and headspace for everything else.

I’ve been sitting on these photos since, umn, November. Hence the old Wall. This is the last time you’ll see it.

I’m wearing a wonderful new boxy top from Tirelli, and it’s probably my fifteenth stripy tee. But this one’s, like, different, because it’s got dropped sleeves (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it). It’s a thin super stretchy fabric, great for very hot days, absolutely has to be tucked in, or it looks like a tent on anyone with boobs. I liked it enough that I also bought the square spot version, which is a cool, sort of grown-up take on polkadots.

I teamed it with cuffed chinos that I bought a year ago from Yours Clothing  and practically never wear. I think, maybe, I actually don’t like trousers much. Jeans yes. Trousers, weirdly, no.

But I had it in my head that I wanted loafers (I bought comfy gold ones from FitFlops) and there’s something about loafers and chinos that just seem to be made for each other.

Shoes: FitFlops

It’s a pretty basic outfit really, and needs some colour, so I added the DIY necklace that I made after my class with Sheree McCready of PollyCollective.

Necklace: DIY

Anyway. That’s my rambly start to the year. I hope you all had a wonderful festive season, and here’s to a better and brighter 2018.

Olympic Spirit

Frocks and Frou Frou Frocks and Frou Frou Frocks and Frou FrouTee-shirt: Gorman

Trousers: Love Your Wardrobe

Shoes: Seychelles

Right. So. Before I kick off, I just wanted to say that I’ve been really, really disappointed by Gorman this year. In April they basically flunked the World Aid Australian 2016 Fashion Report; I gave then the benefit of the doubt because they claimed that their ‘F’ rating was ‘a failure to reply, not a failure to comply’, and that they’d made the decision not to disclose information about their production practices to Baptist World Aid Australia. I thought their bungled response – a belated instagram post jumping on board the #WhoMadeMyClothes awareness campaign – was misguided, but not inherently evidence that their well-known social and ethical policy was baloney (and FYI, they recently published the results of an internal and external survey of working conditions, and it looks mostly OK).

More recently they have found themselves in hot water over claims that they’ve been willfully and knowingly ripping off indie artists including Emily Green, Kirra Jamison, and Eloise Rapp. This came hot on the heels of the release of their enormously popular collaboration with Australian artist Mirka Mora and it’s one of my pet hates.

Gorman does great prints. I’ve been singing their praises for years, and hoping and wishing that they’d expand their size range (they haven’t). But I think maybe the love affair is over. I don’t think I’ll be buying from Gorman again.

This top is part of a current range at Gorman, and I’m hoping they haven’t been ‘influenced’ by someone for it. I loved it enough to spend nearly $100 on it (for a t-shirt for God’s sake) so I’m planning to wear the hell out of it.

Frocks and Frou FrouThe print’s called ‘synchronised’, and it features a bunch of ladies wearing sensible knickers and doing gymnastic poses. It’s very Olympic in spirit, and it’s a great statement piece to pair with plain skirts and pants.

Speaking of pants; the trousers are from Love Your Wardrobe, who are a new-to-me Australian online plus-size brand that I have somehow totally missed up til now.

I took advantage of their recent sale to try their cuffed-pull on pants, and I’m so glad I did. They fit beautifully – I went by the size chart, which was spot on – and are in a lovely light fabric that will be wonderful in summer. They don’t crush, fit my thighs (and giant calves!), have fully functional pockets, and feature a proper waistband at the front, meaning I can wear tops tucked in without feeling like too much of a dag.

I don’t usually like to buy trousers online because the fit is much more iffy, but Love Your Wardrobe ships free, and being Australian return shipping wasn’t going to be a major problem if the pants ended up being a trainwreck. The $25 voucher you get for signing up doesn’t hurt, either.

The range is fairly limited at the moment, but it’s nice to have another local store I can support.

On that topic – don’t forget that this weekend is Melbourne Fashion Week Plus, and tickets are still available to see some of the exciting new players in the plus-size fashion world at one of the weekend’s four runway shows. I’ll be there, front and centre, so say hi if you see me! I’m also planning to visit the A+ Markets on the Sunday – its sure to be a huge one!