Uniqlooks September: One item, three looks – UU Bulky fleece jacket

Look 1: Bulky fleece Jacket – Uniqlo. Purple shirt – Uniqlo. Pants – ASOS White. Shoes – Alexander Wang via Vestiaire Collective. Bag – JHYoo

Look 2: Bulky fleece Jacket – Uniqlo. Silk top – Partimi. Jeans – James Jeans. Shoes – Isabel Marant. Bag – Kurt Geiger . Watch – Casio

Look 3:  Bulky fleece Jacket – Uniqlo. Fleece shirt – Mens’ Uniqlo. Skull-lace skirt – Gmarket. Boots-sies – old season Patrizia Pepe. Clutch – Chanel. Belt – JHYoo

As I was piecing together this month’s Uniqlooks I couldn’t help but notice – 2012 is one year gone with haste – can you believe October is at the doorstep with Winter padding towards the lawn? And here I am, still waiting for that summer to happen (It RSVPed, what was THAT about). I’m going to do the usual description of this month’s Uniqlooks hero item I chose (I purchase these items monthly, just to be clear), and say it’s been my second skin. And this time, believe it or not, the arrow is fluttering closer to ZERO/SOMEWHAT TRUE on the Blogger-Exaggeratometer because ever since LFW ended I’ve been working non-stop and also managed to catch something so basically I’ve lived in this purple fluffy thing while either sipping criminal dose of coffee or later, popping antibiotics like they were skittles. In fact, Look #2 is what I’d choose to wear if I had one out for the rest of my life; too bad I’ve also been near-stationary in a chair for a month eating junk so I will soon out-fat those skinny James Jeans and grow exactly into the shape of the purple jacket. I’m in shape. Round is a shape.

Thank you to hubby & Kit for helping with the various photos.

Bestival, Isle of Wight

The glitter bar, where you inhale glitter and sneeze out a tinkerbell

 Wearing: Wax jacket – Barbour. Crop-top – Fairground. DIY Crop-jeans – Zara. Balloon skirt – ASOS. Sneakers – Isabel Marant. Wellies – Barbour. Red cord sweater – Barbour. Bag – Barbour explorer. Water bottle – Sigg. Lace bunny ears – ASOS

When it comes to music I have not put the ‘pop’ into popular for many years now, when my music-to-world synchronization decided to just stop altogether circa 2006 – I think it was exactly when Justin Beaver started talking. Now I put the ‘pop’ in missuz kebab-store hippopotamus and revel at knowing all the words of a TV show theme tune. It seems today that all you see is violence and movies, and sex on TV, but where are those good ol’ fasioned values on which we used to rely? Tha alarm from my Uniqlo ‘Wake Up’ app is my next favourite track. In fact, I should compile some of this into a Spotify playlist – might make you ill, but I promise you’ll feel a whole lot better with your taste in music…and your life, really. So why a music festival? I realised that I must be missing out in something seeing how Bestival is considered one of Britain’s best summer pasttimes, and by going, secretly hoped for a reinfusion of my long lost music appetite. Appetite for burgers and un-Englandy hot weather, I did find, and lots of happy people dressed in giraffes and ant eaters (the theme was Wildlife, alas). If according to a certain mean girl, ‘Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it’, then Bestival is the one time a year when people can dress like 3rd grade Halloween and everyone will compliment your costume. I personally suited up in what I’d always understood as festival uniform: A pair of Barbour wellies, waxed jacket, snuggly cable-knit arriving at the seaside, but by the time we were leaving I really wanted to buy an elephant mask to show I’ve also been there and that it was actually super fun.

Thank you Barbour for taking us to such appropriate grand finale for summer! Also check out – my What to pack for a Festival guest post for the Barbour blog.

Shirt, Blood is the New Black. DIY cropped denim, Zara. Shoes, Isabel Marant Beketts. Sunnies, Jeepers Peepers (similar)

Now that the larger part of the Olympics is over and the sun doing its job properly for once this summer, none of us (i.e England) seem to really know what to complain about. We’re shuffling around the water cooler and downing one too many plastic cups of company water, making small talk over the new carpet and the receptionist’s new clogs. Welcome to CompLane & Co, we were having a fantastic year until the weather cleared up and by some miracle the tourists learnt to stand on the right (edit: of tube escalators). So I am now complaining about wind knocking down a stinky flower vase, which in all honestly was actually quite a lovely gust of wind laced with sweet summer grass that broke the sweltering heat, and the flowers – despite having lost all its petals in transit and having pooped in the vase – was actually a rare luxury in our lifeless flat. I’d love to think these little cycle trips down to Columbia Road flower market is turning into a weekly practice that makes me more of a woman (on paper, at least)… but let me hang up my bra and tell you this, once this sun packs up and goes away to Ibiza (or wherever it retreats usually), I will resume the position Captain-CEO of the unstoppable force that is CompLane & Co, reigning in the confines of my own pizzacrust-lined dungeon. I WILL BE BACK.

Start London (Part of FarFetch boutique network), 42-44 Rivington Street, City of London EC2A 3BN

Right, I will now embark on a mini quest with the objective of sussing out cool shops/boutiques in London; if I can’t get my rear lumps to a gym this Olympics of a year then I might as well power-jog (or bus it, whatever) to places where I can actively practice the art of wallet-ry restraint and tone my forearm with the beast that bears the name of Canon.

Where else than START London to commence on such majestic quest? On my pre-Christmas visit I buckled for this little Charles Anastase polkadot number and decided it wouldn’t hurt to try it on, for what good is restraint when there is no direct challenge, non? I stepped out onto the dressing room landing to scrutinize myself in the mirror – the too-tight sleeves embossing polkadot craters on my arms (think it was two sizes smaller, come to think of it) –  clearly not a pretty sight as the shop advisers all scurried away to attend to a very un-straight shoes-display. As I was twirling, drunk with denial, the mirror suddenly wedged open and Mr Philip Start clambered out from what apparently was a stock room, and for a second I saw myself as a dapper man in an especially well-tailored suit (hello, Mr Start) and peed a little. Guess that was my own special inaugural starter pistol for the quest, so to speak.

Favourites at KCD Pressday SS12

I may report trend like BBC weather forecast the next 24 hours (a slot machine of weather icons running on 50p coins, more like) but it sure looks like a pastels trend gale is brewing in the horizon. Not that I should mind much, everytime I spill my face-mattifying loose powder on my lap I become a pastel monster anyway, might as well be trendy this time round. I will get those Marant sneakers though, so hide yo kids, hide yo wives, and hide your husband.