The Kelly Brook Range

SimplyBe recently released the new Kelly Brook collection.  I spied a gorgeous yellow floral dress that I simply had to have and decided to buy it to wear on my birthday.  

I only managed to take one photograph of myself on the night so I have re-created the outfit this weekend for you to have a better look.

The dress is true to size and as it is a jersey fabric, there is some give to the dress which flows well and makes it comfortable to wear.  The length is 41 inches which hits me just below the knee.  I am 5ft 4 to give you an indication of how it would look on you.

The wrap part of the dress as you can see is just over the bust area.  Usually when I buy this type of dress I wear a slip underneath in order to accommodate for any gaping over the bra but in this case I did not need too.

I would normally end the review at this point but there is one thing that has happened recently in the press that I wanted to mention.  Kelly Brook's ex recently shared via social media some texts purported to be from Kelly in which she fat shames and slut shames other women.

Kelly is no stranger to fat shaming given her spat with Katie Price a couple of years ago when Katie called her a "heffer".  Kelly responded by saying:

"I’ve always been a curvy girl. I’ve got huge boobs. I’ve got a huge bum. I’ve always had that body.  Even when I was a teenager I was curvier than everyone else. That’s just the way I’ve been built. There’s nothing I can do about it and there’s nothing I want to do about it – it’s just me. I’ve learnt to embrace it, accept it and make it work for me"

Kelly therefore well knows the effect of fat shaming and it does not bare well for a representative of a plus size brand to say one thing with a view to selling clothes, yet think another.

The word fat is not an insult, but when used in such a way as Kelly purportedly did, it becomes harmful.  How can you design a collection for plus size women when you believe that being fat is something to criticise?

I think that this is the trouble when you have celebrity collaborations with clothing brands.  The celebrities are just in it for the money and will say whatever is needed, whilst sometimes having completely different views.

The same happened with Gemma Collins who is plus size and happy when she has a clothing range to promote but then bemoans her weight and is unhappy about her body elsewhere.  

I buy a lot of clothes from SimplyBe and will continue to do so.  I made the decision some time ago however not to buy anything from the Gemma Collins range for the reasons above and I would have to think if I were to buy something from the Kelly Brook range again in the future.  

When it comes to celebrity collaborations I do not care if the celebrity is a size 8 or a size 28.  But I do think that they should mean what they say and not just promote body confidence for profit. 

Christmas Party Outfit

Today I thought that I would show you what I wore for my work Christmas party.  For this night out I wasn't looking for sparkle and glitz, I wanted a stylish comfortable outfit with a bit of an edge.  My outfit is comprised from +Simply Be +Fashion World +M&S and +Clarks

My dress is the gorgeous Grazia Print Mesh Trim Dress and my jacket is the Tux Jacket with PU Trim from SimplyBe.

I have added a black bag with gold detailing from Marks & Spencers which can be found here and my ankle boots from Clarks which I have previously reviewed here

SimplyBe Prom Dress

Today I have a beautiful dress to show you from +Simply Be   I am saying this in a whisper in case it runs away however as this dress appears to be very camera shy.

I bought the luxe print prom dress months ago and have worn it on a few special occasions but for some reason, I have never managed to get photographs of myself in it.  Either I forget the camera or the photographs turn out blurred; something always seems to happen to prevent me showing the prom dress to you.

You know sometimes you will try a dress on and you feel nothing short of amazing in it?  You get a little warm glow and your confidence goes up a notch or two?  This is what this dress does for me. 

As you will see from my photographs the lighting isn't great so the dress is still trying to hide away from the limelight.  Naughty dress.  The girls in the pictures are my beautiful friends Shona and Vicky by the way :)

Source

Friday Wishlist

I was watching “This Old Thing” last night, the vintage clothing programme with Dawn O’Porter who I have a bit of a girl crush on.  She was having a conversation with a lady who was a complete vintagephobe and in it summed my ethos to clothes perfectly.

Vintagephobe (she has a name, but I forgot it, and it’s 10pm and I don’t care that much) “But that dress, where would I wear something like that?”.

Dawn “Just put it on and wear it wherever you like!”.

I don’t believe in saving clothes for a special occasion.  The days of wearing your “Sunday best” are long since behind us.  I want to wear my best every single day.  It makes me happy.

Every night before I go to bed I have a rummage through my wardrobe and find something to wear for work the next day.  Shoes are pulled out, jewellery is selected; it takes less than ten minutes out of the day and is time that I willingly sacrifice to be able to look good the next day.  Another ten minutes (ok fifteen) with my makeup bag in the morning and I am good to go, happy and ready to face the world.

I still remember going to work every day from head to toe in black.  I felt invisible.  I made an active choice not to blend into the surroundings any more and now I celebrate the fact that I don’t.  As is well documented in this blog I love bright colours and bold prints so with that in mind, here are my current things on my lusting after list!

1   Multi Floral Print Prom Skirt

2   Sydney Loose Pants

3   Oriental pleated maxi dress

4   Tapestry Floral Dress

5   Jeffrey & Paula Print Dress

A Summer OOTD

Today I thought that I would share with you an outfit that I wore this week when I went out for the day.   I wanted an outfit that would be cool given the gorgeous balmy weather we are currently having, but also with a bit of style to it.

What I ended up choosing was the +Simply Be  Tile Print Tea Dress which I picked up recently as I thought that it would be perfect for the Summer months.  With it I wanted a few pops of colour so I went with the Evans Turquoise Crossover Peeptoe Pumps * from +House of Fraser in a wide fit and also the Heart Pendant* 

The cotton dress kept me cool and calm all day and the gorgeous turquoise sandals were comfortable and gave the pop of colour to the outfit that I was looking for.

What are you wearing in the hot Summer days?

* Denoted gifted items but all opinions my own

South Ruched Sleeve Tea Dress

So I had a spare ten minutes the other day and decided to have a look at the +Very.co.uk to see what they  had going on in the fashion section as I haven't checked it out for ages.  This was perhaps a bad move as I ended up coming away with two dresses...... Oops.

I have one of the dresses to show you today which is a pillar box red tea dress with a blue and turquoise cherry blossom pattern which I adore.  The length is a little shorter than I would normally wear but hey, it is summer after all!

The fit is true to size and I love the skirt to the dress which is very swishy (yes, that is a technical term).  I am 5ft4 for height comparison and I would say that if you are any taller than me then you would definately need tights or leggings.  The sizing ranges from 8 to 24.

I wore the dress with a turquoise necklace that I found in a charity shop, my crochet cardigan from +Simply Be and some Mary Jane shoes from +Clarks 

The South Ruched Sleeve Tea Dress is a lovely dress and for the current bargain price of £25.00, I do urge you to run and get it quick!  

What have you bought lately?

SimplyBe Store Visit

I recently had the opportunity to attend the +Simply Be store in Manchester for a styling session whilst I was spending the weekend there.

I was massively excited as I have been shopping with SimplyBe for some time now and couldn’t wait to roam around the store and try on lots of pretty dresses.

Upon entering the store I was immediately greeted firstly by the lovely Becky and then Steph who was to be my stylist. I do have to make a special mention to them both as they made me feel completely at ease and welcome and I had a great time with them.

I was chatting with Steph about her role within the store and her passion for styling woman and making them feel good about themselves was fantastic. You could really tell that she loved her job and I could have happily spent all day there talking about plus size fashion and body confidence.

Now on the clothes!

With every dress I tried on, I used the magic mirror that SimplyBe have in their stores which enables you to photograph yourself in the mirror and then send the pictures to either your email or upload on to Facebook.

I think I must have been a bit overexcited when typing my email address on to the screen as unfortunately only two images came through to me which ironically were also the dresses that I chose to bring home with me!

PU Pink Biker Jacket

Bird Printed Doll Dress

I was hoping that I wouldn't love the pink biker jacket.  I really was.  I knew I couldn't afford it at the moment but tried it on anyway because I couldn't not.  I love how well it goes with the bird print doll dress (coming soon on the blog in a separate post).  The jacket is now at the top of my ever growing wishlist!!

Tile Print Tea Dress

I spied the tile print dress and immediately thought that it would be perfect for the office.  The fabric flows nicely, is cool to wear and nips in at the waist to add a little va va voom!  Again, I will post about this dress properly in a separate post.

I am gutted that the other dresses didn't transfer to my email but I will show you the ones I tried on anyhow.

Daisy Printed Doll Dress

This is the daisy print version of the bird print dress above.  I loved them both but for my specific colouring, the bird print dress worked better for me.

 There is no reason for this jacket to be here again in the post other than the fact that I can stare at it and swoon.  I have it bad! haha

Joe Brown Rambling Rose Dress

I took this dress into the changing room as a kind of a wild card.  Pink dresses and added ruching below the waist generally doesn't look good on me, but I really liked it.  The only personal thing for me was that it was a little bit too short to wear without leggings and I HATE wearing leggings.  That is just me though, the dress is gorgeous to wear and had a flattering shape.

I am already planning when I can next get to the Arndale in Manchester and I urge you to go.  The girls there are so friendly and helpful, it is nice to see an engaged staff when you walk into a store who are interested in the fashion they are selling.

Bravo SimplyBe!!

Joe Browns Vintage Flower Dress

Today I have to show you another purchase that I made this week.

I have had my eye on this dress for a while now as I love the Joe Brown dresses and the vintage look of this dress had me sold.  After spying a cheeky discount code for +Simply Be I decided to thrown caution to the winds and give it a whirl.

Joe Browns Vintage Flower Dress

The patterning on this dress is beautiful and very 50s esq.  I found that the length was just right on me, just a little past the knee.  The sizing is a little generous, it works on me but I would suggest that anyone with smaller breasts than I size down one.

There is one thing about this dress that I wasn't too impressed with.  The material is so thin that you can see through it.  To be honest I did debate about keeping the dress because of the quality of the material, but as I wear a black slip under all my dresses anyway and I loved it so much, I decided to keep.

Below is a picture of the material up against the morning light.  Now of course it doesn't show as that see through when it is next to your skin, but it is certainly something to consider.

I wore this dress to work today (yes I do get dressed up to go to an office, I know) and I wore it with some gold seasons from Hush Puppies and a costume pearl necklace which I found in a charity shop.

If you are a slip girl like myself, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the dress to you, but for £40.00 it is something to ponder on.

Joe Brown Vintage Tea Dress

Hello all!

Just a quick post where I thought that I would show you what I wore on Saturday in readiness for my photo shoot with Capturing the Curves.

I wanted to wear something that would put me in a fifties frame of mind so I went with a dress that has been sitting in my wardrobe for a while but I haven't had chance to wear.  The Joe Brown Vintage Tea Dress from +Simply Be 

I bought this dress a few weeks ago now and at the time wasn't sure about whether to keep it, but now I absolutely adore it.  For me, it just needed a wide black belt to pull the look together.

Joe Brown's Flattering Floral Dress

For one reason or another I haven't managed to get a new outfit on the post for a while now.  I have lots of new clothing to show you but no time to photograph it!

Today though I managed to grab five minutes to show you my new Spring dress from Joe Brown at +Simply Be  As soon as I saw it in the new Joe Brown collection I knew it had to be mine.  The floral print is something that I love to wear and the shaping of the dress is just right for the style I like to wear.

Today has been the usual wet, windy and cold but I have had absolutely had it with Winter clothing and am moving to Spring, whether the weather agrees with me or not.

You can find the dress here

Shoes are from Hush Puppy

The Magnificent 7th Challenge

We will be posting on the 7th of each month, and the aim of the challenge is to create an outfit to fit the theme, using clothes from our wardrobes, and yes that does mean digging deep into the depths and finding those long lost clothes! Hopefully one of us won’t end up in Narnia, but you never know with a bloggers wardrobe!

This month’s theme was Valentines Day.  Now as I am a single gal, I decided to use this month by choosing an outfit that I would like to wear to a Valentine’s Day meal.  Sadly I won't be attending no as nobody loves me (kidding).

This particular outfit has actually just been bought by me with the Capturing the Curves photo shoot in mind in March 2014 arranged by the incomparable Betty Pamper. Both the dress and shoes are from +Simply Be and together they form my new favourite outfit.

I can’t wait to combine the gorgeous dress with the vintage hair and makeup at the photo shoot and of course will putting the photographs here, and Facebook, and everywhere ha (sorry in advance for the spam)!

I would definitely wear this outfit for a Valentines Day meal as when I put them both on, I felt flirty and confident, just what you want for a special meal with your fella!

Luxe Print Prom Dress

Sole Diva Peep Toe Flared Heel

Aren't they perfect?   I am not sure I am going to be able to wait until the end of March to wear them so I may end up parading around the house in them.  The Capturing the Curve shoot is a 35th birthday present to myself and I want everything to look perfect.  This outfit will certainly help!

Check out the other ladies in the challenge (and hello and welcome to the new ladies who have joined us this month!

 

Purple Skater Dress

How do you know that you are on to a winner with a dress?  The answer is when you see the same dress in a different colour and snap it up without a moment’s hesitation.

I recently showed you the Forest Green Dress I bought from +Simply Be   I was completely in love with the mesh sweetheart neckline and the way the dress nipped back into the waist just at the right point for me.  It is warm enough to wear for Winter and can easily be taken from day to night. 

The simple back drop also allows a variety of statement necklaces to be worn, which I seem to be addicted to at the moment! 

Here I am in the purple version of the dress which I love just as much.  Alas in my bleary eyed dressing this morning I neglected to notice that I was wearing the same jewellery as in the green dress photographs, but as you can see, you could style this dress in many ways.

One thing I particularly like is that when you remove the cardigan, it immediately takes the dress into something I would wear out in the evening making the transition from work to party simple with the exchange of jewellery and minus one layer!