Can Your Skirt Carrie Your Coat?

It was only a matter of time before it being completely essential to dedicate a blog to all fashion lovers favourite fictional character - Carrie Bradshaw! It only seems apt that she be placed in my killer coat section, as I mentioned in the previous blog, Carrie seriously does carrie a skirt or dress with her coat perfectly. And not only that, but just look at the beautiful coats and jackets she wears - feeling jealous? I am!

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The Perfect Coat : Dress Ratio

Burberry Porsum a/w 09/10
Perfect Coat to Skirt Ratio

Burberry Porsum a/w 09/10

Perfect Coat to Skirt Ratio

Although this has been one of our coldest winters in decades I still feel as though age has taken away my ability to block out the cold the way I used to. It was only a year or two ago that me and my friends would go to the clubs dressed in the tiniest of dresses with the tiniest of jackets and would brave the cold for sheer vanity. Now – I physically cannot. I mean I will still wear a dress bare legged in the snow – in fact I did that! But, I wore a three quarter length black Burberry Mac, which although is actually for the summer season proves to be much warmer than any cropped or waist length jacket that I would have donned years ago. In my attempt to wear jeans as little as possible, my Mac (well, like most of the expensive things I wear actually belongs to my mum) has proven to be the essential jacket for my evenings. Mac’s are the ideal coat to wear over a dress, there’s nothing that I hate more than to see a dress hanging out beneath a jacket or coat, unless it is an actual look – like a fitted jumper dress with an open leather biker jacket, or a small cropped jacket with a puff ball skirt – I suppose my point is unless the jacket is short enough it can just look a disaster. For example a jacket that just reaches the mid thighs being worn with a dress or skirt that meets the knees – OH NO!!! There is nothing worst than seeing a skirt gathering around the legs because the coat isn’t the right length or cut for the dress - the thought of this makes me cringe. You could have the most amazing coat on and be wearing the most beautiful dress, but this combination just murders the whole look. Of course, for some a coat is just to keep you warm – but I suppose a person with such an attitude would not be reading an article called The Killer Coat (unless it was about fur!) I believe that in most cases a coat should cover the dress or if not should be the right shape or cut for the dress. Smock coats over skirts and dresses are also a complete no- no. They shorten the body, make you look top heavy and do not balance out the body. Smocks need to be worn only with skin tight jeans or trousers. If you’re tall enough and fairly skinny then possibly you could wear a smock with boyfriend jeans. I would very rarely wear baggy garments on the upper and lower part of the body in one outfit.
It is hard to find a universal coat, one that can be worn for the evenings and day time, worn with long and short dresses and skirts, baggy or skin tight jeans, ankle boots or knee boots! If I was rich I’d have a huge collection of designer coats; Fay and Burberry would be rife in my dream coat wardrobe. Back to reality!!!! - Carrie Bradshaw (yes I am going to use a fictional character – it’s for fashions sake) always managed to get the coat and dress/skirt thing right. Watch a few Sex and The City’s and I’m sure you’ll agree. She does at times get it wrong, but she gets the coat thing...
Considering most of us aren’t Carrie Bradshaw, don’t have a stylist and an endless wardrobe I advise investing in a Mac. A real Mac – not these Macs that you find that have three quarter length sleeves and just about sit on your knees. I’m talking about a Mac that allows you to make a statement without needing to see any of your outfit beneath it, with a sharp collar, the right size lapels, belted cuffs and belted cinched in waist. The queen of the Mac is the Burberry Mac, of course they retail full price around the £700 mark, but in the sale these Macs go down almost 50% and trust me will last you a lifetime! I own a thirty year old Burberry Mac - it’s a classic, you can go into Burberry and buy it all year round. Of course thirty years ago a Burberry Mac cost £400!!! The Mac has one cracked button, the stitching of the buttons so tight that the button cracked instead of falling off! Other than that, it still has the exact same buttons and same stitching it did when it left the store. High quality Macs from high street stores in order, I would recommend French Connection (Best quality/ fairly expensive), Karen Millen (good quality/ acute attention to detail/ most expensive) Topshop (reasonably priced/ average quality/ trendy) Zara (reasonably priced/ average quality/ classic)!!!

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A Personal Note - A Writer, A Rant and A Serious Coat

Ok, so there has been no evidence of a sexy short story remnant of Sicily and Valentines day and I haven’t followed up on the article I mentioned in my last personal note - they will manifest in my writing in a different medium and if this doesn’t work then I guess these mediums will soon be made blog friendly for you to read. Nevertheless my trip to Sicily was inspiring, I met a Catanese Sicilian writer, journalist and culture afficianado – Ottavio Cappellani, who I believe is a male, wiser and more published version of myself!!! Cappellani has three published fictional novels, The Sicilian Tragedee, Who is Lou Sciortino and about to be published Who Framed Lou Sciortino. If you have a fascination with Sicily, The Mafia or appreciate quality literature in its contemporary form then Cappellani is your author. Think Mario Puzo meets Ernest Hemmingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald – with a lean towards magical realism. I feel a book review coming on – however, this is just a quick ‘HELLO.’ I have now come to the end of my All Shapes, All Sizes, For Always section and think it’s time to get really HIGH fashion. The sun is shining, for how long I’m not so sure, but it’s here and is a great stimulus for spring/ summer shopping – if you haven’t already started. I haven’t, but I have been preparing pieces that I already own that will soon be adorned while I build up the new season’s collection. How can anyone love fashion, read, write and research fashion and then save? Does it happen, does it exist, can it be done? I don’t think so. And I’ve noticed, although we are in a recession and a/w 09/10 claims to help us by putting many classic cuts and key pieces on the catwalk in blacks, black and only black and then some more black (which is fine by me as I love it!) how come the price of shoes seem to be rocketing?? And I’m not even talking about Gucci shoes, which at one point the cheapest heeled shoe could be as cheap as £250 and now you can barely get a three inch heel for less than £300! I’m talking about high street stores like Aldo, once a reasonably priced shoe shop now has the cheek to price their shoes at almost the same prices as a Kurt Geiger or Carvella shoe! And then there’s River Island – which to be fair does have some extremely nice shoes, however they are a clothes retailer not a shoe shop – how dare they price their shoes at a higher price than a Topshop shoe?? Yes, I know that Topshop is primarily a clothes shop, however Topshop is a fashion forward, high fashion focused and dedicated high street indicator of the catwalk and veteran to the high street. Topshop is the only shop that seems to remain true to its shoe, beautiful shoes at high street prices, looking almost high fashion - their prices haven’t budged much in the past five years. Aldo shoes used to rank in the same kind of price range as Topshop, shoes generally for £60, now Aldo is up there in the eighties and nineties, almost right up there with Karen Millen (another shop that has remained pretty true to its pricing). As you can tell I feel pretty passionate about this subject so I’ll stop right here! I’m just saying that with the recession and rising prices how are high street shoppers and averaged waged people supposed to stay fashionable?? Another question, does Shelley’s still exist? Now there’s a real shoe shop, with real high street prices! Look out for my Shoe Fetish blogs...
Moving swiftly on, now that a/w 09/10 has been catwalked and archived we can begin our search for the perfect winter coat and although I am not trying to wish our summer away, if you should be thinking about a serious coat, shaped, sculpted, ruffled and embellished - as they all don in Taormina (North East Sicily) and don’t have a couple of grand saved in the bank to purchase one then you should be thinking about your coat NOW. My up and coming Killer Coat blogs should help you.
Finally, the fun part, if you have decided your colour pallet, cuts and shapes that work with your body shape, trends that work well with your lifestyle and a price range that suits your bank balance – then I leave you with one instruction - START COLLECTING YOUR SPRING/SUMMER 09 WARDROBE NOW – Happy Shopping!!! X x x x

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All Shapes, All Sizes, For Always - The Trouser Suit

Jordan Dunn Ermanno Scervino s/s09 (to die for!)

Antonio Berrardi s/s09 (flood length tailored trouser)
Ermanno Scervino s/s09

This is a tricky ensemble. Sometimes the trouser suit is particularly prevalent on the catwalk and at other times they are almost non-existent. The trouser suit continues to change, evolve, revolve and innovate. Blazer’s change their cuts from slim lined to androgynous, shoulder pads to non and trousers from tapered to straight, boot cut to wide legged and so on and so forth. And unless you can go into Paul Smith and buy yourself a killer suit, the buying process of the perfect suit is exactly as I said, ‘A Process.’ However the shape and cuts we are seeing for s/s 09 season are completely exquisite. Particularly this suit worn by Jordan Dunn for Ermanno Scervino, it’s neat, sexy, incredibly sophisticated (wearing one of these you would most certainly feel a cut above the rest) and a great practicality factor resides with the trouser suit that is rarely considered in fashion - Comfort. The trouser suit is incredibly comfortable. The tapered trouser suit is the ultimate classic, a key investment piece definitely. Of course trouser suits are tricky, they need to be well tailored, they need to sit on the body perfectly and they always need to be good quality – NOT EXPENSIVE – just good quality. And after investing such an amount of time and a fair bit of money – you have to think, where can I wear this? Apart from the office? However, as much as I love black, I couldn’t see myself wearing a black tapered trouser suit during the day anywhere apart from to an office in the city – And hopefully I won’t be headed to any office in the city any time soon! When wearing black in the summer during the day I try to keep the clothes as precise to the season as possible – a black tapered tailored suit is almost too ambiguous and can ultimately look like ‘you just got it wrong!’ Hence why suits such as Antonio’s Berardi grey suit above is perfect for both day and night. The jacket is beautifully cut, adding the womanly curves into the body of the jacket which takes away from the masculinity of the trouser suit and just to add more sex appeal to the suit the trousers are a flood length – which means you have plenty of room to play around with an extravagant decorative shoe as seen particularly on the Gucci s/s09 catwalk, on the other hand you could keep shoes relatively simple and make your ankles be the main feature of this length trouser. After all, ankles are a sexy yet tasteful part of the body to reveal, less obvious than the décolletage, far more tasteful than cleavage! I could see myself wearing this in Italy with a killer pair of gold heels to add ‘GLAM’ and a bit of fun to sophistication and where I’d be going in Italy dressed like this – well I haven’t decided yet!

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