Things I'm looking forward to in #June!

Dial up your workwear game with a Cecily dress

So we are nearly half way through 2016!! Crikey - how time flies. This month sees the manifestation of a couple of long held dreams when it comes to my business, The Wardrobe Angel.

1. First up we have me landing a radio show! I did student radio when I was a first year at Nottingham University and loved it. Since then I've been invited to talk about all things wardrobes on BBC Radio Leeds, Manchester and Humberside. Now I have my own show on a Tuesday morning from 9-12 noon on Phoenix FM, talking to awesome people who are doing awesome things in awesome businesses. You can listen online, text in for shout outs and request songs. See you there - I'll be live every Tuesday from 7th June!
2. Secondly I've been asked to contribute to a book about wardrobes. Erm, hello? How perfect is that?! The book's purpose is to investigate the space of the wardrobe:  

How to feel #sexy on Valentines Day

With Clintons proclaiming love through cards, florists through roses and M&S hammering their £20 meal deal, you can't ignore Valentines Day sitting on our doorsteps waiting to be invited in for a glass of bubbly and a fistful of chocolates.

How do I feel sexy? I always take a bit more time moisturising after a bath and really enjoy putting on my make-up. I get all my clothes out in advance, thinking about how I want to feel in my clothes, thinking about how they are going to fit over my body. I won't rush out and buy a new outfit just for the occasion but I will have kept something in reserve, something Rich hasn't seen me in before, whether it is a new necklace, a dress or a jacket from a previous shopping trip, so he sees me in a new light that night.

And when he compliments me, I really take it in. 

Compliments are a gift, they have the power to brighten your day. I used to squirm in the face of a compliment. Now I say "thank you."

Staying in on Valentines? I always look to fabrics to see me through. I love the feeling of a silk dressing gown - thoroughly elegant in a way that a towelling one will never be. I love the feeling of freshly ironed, crisp white bed linen as well;a bit of a farce but I love ironing so I win either way!.If we aren't going out for dinner, we'll stay in and cook something super tasty. We exchange cards but we don't really do gifts; I'd much rather Rich make me a brew! That to me is romance!

For me Valentines Day isn't about grand gestures, it is about amplifying what is already there, taking a little extra time to get ready and relishing the experience of being with Rich, even if we are just sitting on the sofa with a brew!

Shopping for my wedding dress (Part 1)

This is already hilarious for me. Much as I love clothes I have never dreamt of my dream wedding dress. You read that correctly. I have dreamt of Mulberry handbags and mid heeled court shoes, of wardrobes with magnificent sliding doors and clothes all neatly organise inside. I have dreamt of holidays in Ibiza, the ultimate red lipstick and of the perfect brew and the accompanying wheat free biscuit. But I have never dreamt of my dream wedding dress.

I'm a stylist and image consultant and love clothes, but this wedding dress malarkey is a whole new, terrifying, other worldly ball game for me. Here are some wedding dress shaped facts about The Wardrobe Angel:

• I have never tried on a wedding dress before. NEVER. NEVER EVER.
• I fell out with maxi dresses last year and have never worn a floor length gown so I don't know if I'll like that wedding dress material swishing around me.  
• I think I have wedding dress blindness - I bought a bridal magazine and after a few pages of flipping through I couldn't tell the difference between one dress and the next. 
• I'm scared of the weight of the dress; I'm hardly a body builder and carrying around all that tulle and lace for a whole day seems out of my bodily reach.

We've set the date, booked the church and the venue and now there is this HUGE gaping hole in the organisation of our wedding - my missing dress. And time is ticking. I get married in under 9 months. I rang the very wonderful Natalie Willingham to book her as my make-up artist on the day and she gave me some very sound advice,

"You've never tried on a wedding dress before and they are a different breed of clothing altogether so when you enter the shop take off your stylist hat and be guided by the shop assistants."

Except here we are - the first day of wedding dress shopping is tomorrow. I don't know what pants to wear, I am plucked, waxed and shaved within an inch of my life and I have NO IDEA what to try on first. I don't know what I like. I can feel a huge panic rise in my chest and it does not subside. My Mum is clearly loving this and I am trying my very best to go through the motions but I NO IDEA what I am doing.

And I am TERRIFIED.

Allium B Get Dressed (again)

The second Allium B dress I styled was Flora. This was really testing my mettle - I don't 'do' florals - but as a stylist and Image Consultant I see a lot of clients who do. And I can't go shoving my dramatic style into all the wardrobes I see - we are all individual after all!

Flora got the same treatment as Sophia last week and got a makeover for Going Out, Casual and Wedding Guest:

 

 

Running Left - Right we have....

Wedding Guest - I wanted to give the guests behind me in the congregation something to look at so I used a Silence and Noise jacket with a cut away back. Then blocked all sights and sounds with a massive satellite hat and 80's patent clutch. Heels from Office. 

Casual - I paired Flora with my Safari jacket, Harry Hall riding boots and a massive scarf from Gap. Leaves supplied by the trees. 

Going Out - Faux Fur for all! ASOS came up with the goods and the necklace is from Topshop. Leopard boots are Kurt Geiger's finest. 

If you love the look of Allium B but love 20% off even more please use the exclusive code 

ANGEL14 

to receive 20% off your chosen Allium B dress. Click here for the website. 

How you know when it's time to let go.

We've all got wardrobe favourites that, like a stubborn child, refuse to go anywhere. Mine is a sunshine yellow shift dress from H&M Trend. I bought it when I was the Visual Merchandising Manager of the flagship H&M store in London in the late 00's and man have I LOVED IT. I wore it with polo necks underneath and cardigans belted on top, I wore it on nights out and to work. It worked in winter and in summer, with flats and with boots, with bare legs and with tights. I think the only place I didn't wear it was to bed.

My happy sunshine H&M dress

You can just about see the ink spot 

Looks cool, non?

Then 2 things happened that should have sounded like a klaxon in my wardrobe-attuned ears. Firstly, I got black printer ink on front (to be honest, my Mum did such a good job of getting the ink out that the 'spot' left only a tiny patch of discoloured fabric. But once you know, you know) Secondly, the dress became mildly transparent due to so much washing. Probably around the time a bit of ink got on it....



To solve problem one I got some poppers sewn on so I could attach my fur stole which covered the ink spot - awesome - but this limited when and where I could wear the dress. I was still walking round flashing my pants so to combat the transparency issue I invested in some nude underwear. Now I really was flogging a dead dress. The dress somehow made its way to the back of my wardrobe where every so often I would take it out, remember the good times, and put it straight back. The thing was, even though I knew deep down that I would never wear the dress again, I didn't want anyone else to have it. Sound familiar?

Times move on and fashions come and go. Styles change around you and your personal style will never stop growing with you. I should've left this dress in my twenties where it belonged. This month I am moving into my new home and there is no place for this 1960's inspired see-through dress with its tarnished buttons, biro stained back (lord knows how that happened) and poppers sewn on to the neckline.

So - if you want it, it's yours. Tweet me @wardrobe_angel, hit me up on Facebook or message me via my website.  It's a size 10 and the biro stain is tiny, I promise.

Baukjen, you beauty

My phone pinged with a message yesterday morning. As I looked at the screen I smiled an ear to ear grin. This was the kind of message that makes my job as The Wardrobe Angel feel AWESOME. It was a photo message from a client of her wearing one of the dresses I had recommended to her on her follow up Shopping List. It was early and she was dressed to give a presentation that day.  She felt “AMAZING.”

This is what makes me different from other image consultants and stylists, one of my USP’s if you will (the other is eBay but we’ll cover that in another post). It’s all very well saying to clients “this style of dress will really suit you” or “you need some find some trousers in this style” when odds are the client has neither time nor shopping fervour to go out and find them. A lot of my clients are pushed for time and/or have never had much success with shopping and that’s why they have called me in the first place.  They want answers:  how to organise their wardrobe and style themselves, how to save time getting dressed and make money from the items they no longer wear. What they don’t want are more futile shopping trips and wasted money on ‘meh’ purchases. 

After I have sorted a wardrobe and ascertained the ‘gaps’, I put my knowledge and expertise to work to fill them for the client. That’s why I included the Shopping List as part of the Sort, Style and Sell service (click here for more information). I do all the leg work – checking sizing, availability, seeing if I can get them a discount. Then I send them the Shopping List via email. This is done in tandem alongside a Pinterest board so they can see how their new wardrobe will fit together.

So back to the dress which made my client feel “AMAZING.” Which one was it? The Baukjen Jersey Drape dress. It is double layered so it “holds and contours the figure” which translates as YOU DON’T NEED SHAPEWEAR. My client vouched for this, the rest of her message said 

“The material is thick and wraps around, sucking me in. I have a presentation this morning and it feels great!”

Job well done, Baukjen!

Figgahugga

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Amanda from Figgahugga asking if I would like to try one of their dresses. I usually wheel out the shape wear in January (ask me about the shape wear/Urbis lift story when you next see me) and the rest of the time just wing it with a mix of no VPL pants so the offer really interested me especially as the Figgahugga range is designed to be worn as part of your wardrobe, not just underneath in the manner of Bridget Jones's Big Pants (if you don't know what I'm on about watch the film clip here). In received my dress and a lovely note from Amanda who has the most beautiful handwriting, FYI.

On Saturday one of my closest friends got married and I chowed down on the buffet: ham, potato wedges, bread (and I don't usually eat bread due to a wheat intolerance but this was a special occasion) salad, numerous pieces of cake....now double that and add a few more pieces of cake. And chutney. And coleslaw. And third helpings of ham. By the time I exited the do my food baby looked like it was 6 months old. This, I decided, was the perfect time to try the Figgahugga and this was the result...

Not a food baby in sight. 

So - they aren't the easiest thing to get on. There was a moment when the dress was mid thigh when I thought "it's too small." Then a rather panicked moment further up around my hips when I thought,

"I can't get it on! But I can't get it off!"

But I'd committed so inch by inch I pulled the dress on as instructed in the video on the Figgahugga website and my panic subsided.

Then I looked in the mirror. I was speechless:

(speechless) 

I am 33, I work out, don't smoke, don't drink so I am in pretty good nick but that tiny blue dress had worked its magic and there wasn't a food baby in sight (although there is a hideous carpet, for which I apologise). Plus the blue colour I had chosen looked immense with my red nail/lip combo.

Now the thing is - am I going to wear it? I always said that when I started The Wardrobe Angel I wouldn't recommend anything to clients I wouldn't use myself and I can hand-on-heart say that I will wear this again.

I set about styling the dress with the contents on my suitcase (I was staying in a hotel in Manchester post-wedding). Styling the dress with a top and shoes from Zara and a Luca Jack ring, turned said dress into a skirt. I'm not into the whole bodycon look so I love a bit of volume to balance out the silhouette and keep some of the goodies under wraps. My legs - I love my legs - come on summer so I can get them out! Plus the Figgahugga has silicone around the bottom hem to keep it in place so no flashing the cash incidents, and they are a British product.

Immense.

Click here for the Figgahugga website.

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And proof that you can walk in said Figgahugga....The Wardrobe Angel cocks her leg... (it was 1am - there was no way I was going outside to walk around the hotel car park!)