Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Fortnight begins tomorrow so my challenge to you is to take a look at your clothes labels as you’re getting dressed and think about where it came from, and think about where you’re shopping too (that means no Primark I’m afraid!)

But it’s not all doom and gloom, there are also some great places to shop to do your bit for fair trade! Like these gorgeous earrings from Utility (£25)

They are part of a range of delicate jewellery all made from fairtrade silver. Check out the collection here.

Does anyone know of any fairtrade shops in Preston? I got this beautiful ring from one back home. (Sorry for the bad quality pictures)

Being good has never looked so good!

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Fairtrade: from what you wear to Divine chocolate bars (so yummy!) and the Co-op’s fairtrade wine (really good!).
• UCLan’s Green Gecko Festival which will be hosting a fashion show on March 14th to help Cambodian street children.
• This article I wrote for TellusFashion about a designer who helps women in Lebanon by working for her.

The return of Cambridge Girl to Preston

I always joke that every time I come back to Preston another of my favourite shops/bars/restaurants has closed down so I was pleasantly surprised when I came back on Friday for a week to see a new womenswear shop opposite Fishergate shopping centre had opened up called Via.

I will definitely be checking it out while I’m here so look out for a blog post about it and I’ll try and get an interview with the owner.

Sadly I learnt that the curse I seem to bring to Preston had in fact happened again and The Closet menswear has closed down.

Maybe I had better not come back in September… 

British Fashion: creative, a little bit eccentric and… slutty?

I’ve always been a fan of short skirts, which is probably a good thing because with 36″ legs, respectable length skirts always ended up short on me anyway.

My mother always used to say to me that she wishes she was less self-conscious about her body when she was young, which was a mistake as I always used to use it against her when she told me my skirt was too short. “I should show it off while I still can!”

Looking back on it now I think yes, that skirt probably was too short for a 14-year-old to be wearing but I’d be damned if I let her tell me what to wear.

I still wear short skirts but I’ve always been of the theory that a shorter skirt was ok as long as you weren’t wearing it in a trashy way. For example I have a very nice Pringle 1815 knitted dress which I would consider smart enough for work but in fact comes to about half way up my thigh. A body con skirt that came half way up my thigh with a low-cut vest top would be a whole other matter.

It has come to my attention recently though that short skirts are a very British thing. Not even just in comparison to strict, conservative countries.

Talking to a French friend who was over in England studying, one of his observations of life in England was the hemlines of women.  Another friend who had been staying in Paris gave me some advice and said “cover up! That dress you’re wearing now would be too short, you would get harassed non stop.”

On discussing this topic with some friends, one of them said that he knew someone who was a teacher, originally from America, who was absolutely shocked on non uniform day with the skirts the girls were wearing.

It all makes me wonder, why do we feel the need to get our legs out? It certainly isn’t the weather!

Is it a part of British fashion, or is it a part of British society?

Looking through the A/W10 shows at the best of the British designers I found Alexander McQueen showing polar opposites of mini skirts and full length dresses, Burberry Prorsum giving us respectable knee-length skirts and Vivienne Westwood going knee-length and lower.

So perhaps it’s us.

Inevitably this brings up all sorts of feminist questions. Are we empowered? Do we love our bodies and we aren’t afraid to show them? Or are we still falling prey to the desire for male attention despite fashion telling us we can do otherwise and look fabulous?

I’d really like to know your thoughts…

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Wearing maxi dresses… very on trend and less feminist issues!
• Leaving a comment: how short is too short? Is it a feminist issue at all? If you’ve got it, do you have to flaunt it while you still can? Is fashion what the designers say or what the public are wearing?
• The Burbery Prorsum collection… Divine with a capital D!!

Lent Challenge Update

Firstly, an apology for not posting in a couple of weeks – note to self: laptops and coffee do not mix!

So… how is wearing black for 40 days going? Horribly. I hate it. I can’t wait til Easter!

It’s so much harder than I thought it would be, perhaps even harder than when I gave up make up last year. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps because I’m daily having to make a conscious effort to do something that isn’t me rather than just leaving part of my morning routine out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about those people who chose to dress in black. I can’t imagine what it would be like to wear a burka for example. Some westerners view the burka as oppressive to women but many Muslim women are happy to wear it, some women even find it sexy that only one man sees their body. However, it is a contentious issue and one that is all about whether there is a choice involved. Nicholas Sarkozy famously called for the burka to be banned in France because it was a “symbol of subservience” which he would not welcome in France. It seemed ironic that he was taking a choice away from women while trying to liberate them.

My mum told me she watched a programme on TV about women who wear burkas a year or so ago and I wish I had watched it too. She said that it was a presented by a Muslim woman who wore a burka and explained what it meant to her and expressed her right to wear it. She also talked about what they wore underneath their burkas, beautiful, colourful Asian clothing. Does it matter what you know you’re wearing more than what other people see you wearing?   

A friend of mine, who comes from a Muslim background once wore a burka for a day to experience what it was like being a Muslim woman. She never wore it again because of the looks she got from people. She told me she felt like everyone was thinking “not another immigrant” when infact she is British born and bred. She felt belittled and self-conscious. Interesting how we view the eastern tradition of wearing burkas as oppresive when for some women it is the western cultural intolerance to it that is oppresive.  

Our relationship with clothes, when we look outside our own little world is so deep.

Chosing to wear black has made me feel grumpy, uncreative and dull.

If someone told me to wear black? Well I think I’d go and put on the brightest piece of clothing I own!

I think I have a real appreciation of my right and my freedom to wear what I want. While I will be judged on those decisions sometimes and while sometimes I have to conform to appropriate dressing, I’m a lucky woman and I can’t wait til I can express that again.

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Appreciating that you chose to wear what you’re wearing today.

Are men less attracted to fashionable women?

In my list of credentials my ideal man would have, good fashion sense ranks quite highly. A man who is fashionable is someone who not only matches something that is important in my world but takes care of themselves and that is an attractive quality to have.

However, the way I dress is rarely to please a man or draw myself to the attention of learing men but it is fashionable and stylish.

Kate Moss may be considered one of the most stylish women in the world but ask the average man and they’d rather have Megan Fox. I guess for men it really is what’s underneath that counts… underneath the clothes.

I wonder if when we see a man who takes care of themselves they see a woman as arrogant and what we see as being comfortable in our own skin is perceived as a feminist statement to dress the way we want and not how a man wants.

Could it also be seen as intimidating? Do men think fashionable women are going to look down on the way they dress? Do we look like we think we’re too good for them simply by enjoying fashion?

This is rarely the case but what will get us ahead in some areas of life appears to be holding us back when it comes to a love life.

I’m aware that quite a lot of men simply have very little idea or interest when it comes to fashion but I don’t understand how that hinders the ability to see what looks good and what doesn’t. I’ve never heard a man say “wow she looks really good” whenever a woman takes a creative risk with her fashion.   

I don’t have the answer to this question but I’d like to know if other people find this an issue; and maybe one day I’ll find someone who loves me fashion statements and all.

The Shopping Experience

It is quite well known amongst my friends that I have a shopping problem.

Part of it comes with the territory of being involved with fashion but mostly I simply just love it!

Not necessarily buying things (although that does tend to make a shopping trip quite a bit better!) but actually going out shopping. It’s about browsing the new season, it’s about rummaging amongst the rags to find a gem, it’s about speaking to sales assistants and it’s about feeling good about myself.

Unfortunately, I feel again like the high street is failing me.

Messy shops, mass produced designs and rude sales assistants.

Designer shopping may be a more expensive way to go but it’s certainly a more pleasant one. I leave these places feeling like I got my money’s worth. It’s an experience worth buying in to.

What makes me even sadder though is that I don’t think many other people care. People expect bad service on the high street and they’re happy to settle for it.

Working part time in Paperchase I try my best to give good customer service and not to wait to be approached by customers but to approach them. The number of times I have asked someone, very obviously looking for something in particular, whether they would like any help and they sharply respond with a “no I’m fine thank you” and then spend the next 10 minutes still searching around the shop.

I could have saved them time, I could have made a sale for the shop and they may have left a little happier. Instead they were too British to speak to a stranger.

I think a lot of other people don’t ask for help because they’re tired of getting a blank look from the sales assistant followed by an “ummm no I don’t think so.” I’m not going to name any names but there are some shops that I don’t ask for help in or I simply don’t shop in anymore because I’m fed up of looking like I’m seriously troubling someone by asking for help even though that’s what they’re paid to do.

I read an article in Elle last month about what the experience of shopping meant to the writer. She described the relationship between neat rows of clothing and her own mental state. If you are surrounded by tidiness and orderliness it makes you feel like for once your life may be like that.

I’m inclined to agree with her. I notice it more now since reading that article. Somewhere that is so organised makes you more relaxed, it also makes you want to buy the clothes. Primark may well be renowned for being cheap but when you see those huge piled up tables of tops and they’re all falling off on to the floor, you realise how cheap. If the staff don’t care about the clothes, why should I?

Think of a really good shopping experience. Imagine life is like that. Everybody is friendly and wants to talk to u, everything is beautiful and looks great and you get exactly what you want. It’s a nice take on retail therapy!

Customer service was expected to improve during the recession as business scrape for every sale but I’m not sure I’ve noticed it yet. Customer service seems to be an added perk to shopping not a staple rule as it should be.

Is it only me that goes shopping for an enjoyable experience not just to buy things and am I expecting too much?

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Going to an expensive shop to see how short changed you are on the high street.
• Shopping in privately owned shops where they care about their shop
• Retail therapy

Whatever happened to dressing for the occasion?

A few things happened this week which made me think about the lack of diversity in fashion in the general public.

We live in a society where you can wear jeans on a night out, to dinner, out shopping, hanging around the house or even to work in some cases. We are more relaxed and there is less expected of you in the way you dress. I don’t necessarily think this is a good thing. Obviously I am pleased that as a woman I do not have to be confined by what a man tells me I must wear but we still get judged by the way we dress so what difference has it made? Only that we have a wardrobe full of the same types of clothes.

I was reading a fashion book this week which documents the main changes in fashion in each decade of the 20th century. Reading through the 1920′s and the crassness of wearing short sleeves to work and how lounge pyjamas were suitable for informal parties I thought it such a shame we don’t have stricter dress codes. It just means you spend an hour on the phone to your friends before going out discussing what to wear. I think it’s dissapointing when you go out on a big night out all dressed up and everyone else in the club is dressed casual.

Some of you may know that I volunteer in an Oxfam shop. Last week someone donated some exquisite evening gloves – elbow length, white gauze with pearl buttons. I wanted to buy them because they were really beautiful but I would never get the opportunity to wear them.

You’ve probably guessed I’m a fan of dressing up! I don’t care if I’m wearing a dress and no one else is but you’ve got to have confidence to pull that off. I’m a very big Sex and the City fan and one of the things I adore about the way Carrie dresses is how she dresses for the occasion – for example she wears a cow girl hat to the Hampton’s hoedown, a head-wrap to an African dance class and a stripey dress when she goes to Paris. What better way to dress than to draw inspiration from what is around you and where you are going.

This week I had planned to go see Coco Before Chanel (unfortunately it was full, expect a review of the film next week.) So, feeling a little Chanel inspired, I wore a black pencil skirt, white t-shirt with ruffle sleeves and a navy blue trim, a vintage satchel bag and lots of pearls.

And this is how I intend to dress from now on. My outfits will be well thought out for where I’m going, who I’m seeing and what is appropriate.   

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Taking some inspiration from Carrie Bradshaw’s closet
• Daring to be different

Style vs. Fashion

They say style never goes out of fashion.

Fashion is often considered something fleeting and superficial as opposed to style which is more concrete but I think fashion gets a bad rep.

In fact, I really think it’s the other way round. Style is superficial. It is purely about what looks good, the aesthetics of an outfit. Don’t get me wrong, of course I think style is great and it is important to me but fashion is what really excites me. Fashion is so much more than what meets the eye.

You would not think that a piece of art was superficial because you know that no matter what it looks like there is meaning behind it and it is inspired. So if we put fashion in the same context suddenly you can see it for what it really is.

For example, look at the correlation between women’s rights and rising hemlines. Coincidence? I think not. Society demands fashion and inspires fashion. If we look more recently we see the same too. Anyone seen a couple of Michael Jackson inspired outfits around? I certainly have.

Fashion expands so much further than the individual, as style does. We look back at past eras and one of the first things that springs to mind is fashion. 50′s shift dresses, 60′s mini skirts, 70′s flares, 80′s shoulder pads and 90′s denim jackets.

You can chose whether you have style or not but whether you like it or not, you are caught up in fashion. Whether you just happen to buy a new top that is in fashion because you like it or whether you buy a new house which is the current fashion for housing styles.

I don’t think that is a bad thing. It is not something people should feel pressured by but a simple fact of life and it should be a joy to be a part of.  

I know there are people out there who turn in disgust as they think fashion dictates peoples lives but I feel that is a very naive way of thinking. They are calling us totally passive, stupid and brain washed. I certainly do not feel that way. I would love to change my wardrobe over every 6 months but I can’t afford to and therefore I don’t. I dislike the current trend for country and western style tassels and therefore I do not buy in to them. I am an admirer of fashion and not a slave. I have a style that is influenced by fashion and I’ll thank you for not thinking of me as so patronised.

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Reading the other half of the argument: www.timothybucktwo.blogspot.com

Vogue tries to ditch the skinny models

I’m sure many of you will have heard in the news this week that Alexandra Shulman, the editor of Vogue UK, has criticised designers for providing extra small sample clothes, forcing them to use the thinnest models.

She also admitted to re-touching photographs to make the models appear larger.

I’m encouraged to a see one of the most influential people in the world of fashion journalism getting on board an issue and I think people will really respond well to this.

I do agree that size 0 models is simply not right but a healthy size 8/10 is quite logical. Super skinny models is innevitable though, in an industry full of catty women who all want to be the best, which sadly often translates as the thinnest.

It’s true that we are facing a hideous epidemic of eating disorders and the media gets very heavily blamed for this.

 

I wonder how far this campaign will go though. Do people really want to see ‘normal’ people in adverts? Shulman’s objection is a good one, forcing the designers to make bigger clothes is the best way to promote a healthy body but many people are beginning to object to models full stop.

 

What affect would the fashion industry face if we had ‘normal’ sized models?

The whole concepts of models is that they are a super breed of humans. They are an illusion of beauty, luxury and allure. They are not meant to look like Joe Bloggs and they aren’t what is commonly classed as ‘beautiful’.

You wouldn’t have a shop that tried to sell clothes by screwing them up and putting them on the floor. You sell them by making them look beautiful, and putting them on beautiful people.

I think the real message should be that you should want the clothes, not to look like the model.

The truth is that the modelling industry is far from glamourous most of the time. I remember watching a diet program about a year ago in which one of the presenters tried a models diet for about a week (the diet coke and cigarettes diet, the only apples diet and other such crazy ideas.) She spoke to a model who revealed that wanting to be the thinnest is so unhealthy and so depressing. She said that there is a massive amount of laxative abuse in the modelling world and the toilets behind the stage at fashion shows are some of the worst she’s ever seen. (I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.)

The illusion of beauty in models has stretched way to far. It is a hideous way to live. Food is not only there to give nutrition, it is there to be enjoyed. There is a reason we have taste buds, to make us love eating.

Socially, it is one of the best ways to bond with the people you love and the people you want to build relationships with. If you starve yourself, if you limit your diet, if you have a negative attitude to food, you exclude yourself from that. Often the unseen side of eating disorders is the social impact. 

If we know that men find curvier figures more attractive, if we know that most models are pretty miserable with their food situation and not even Vogue wants to photograph skinny models, why do we still see the girl and want the body?

For me beauty comes with confidence and a great big smile. The best way to make people think you’re attractive is not to pick at your food at the dinner table, it’s to believe you are attractive.   

Cambridge Girl recommends:

• Reading the full story of Alexandra Shulman’s campaign.
• Loving the skin you’re in.

I <3 charity shops

There has never been a better time to get into charity shop shopping.

Charity shops are beginning to reinvent themselves. They have realised that if they really want to make profit, they have to do business like ordinary shops on the high street. So they are being much more picky about what they stock.

The benefits for you and me are that we get to look cool and retro for Primark prices (and I won’t end up wearing the same top as five other people I pass in the street.) If you’re too snobby to admit you bought it in a charity you can also disguise it under the label ‘vintage’ and put it on a par with your clothes from Portobello Market.  

If you like the challenge of digging out a good find then head to small town charity shops and lesser known charity shops. You might find that in general the clothes are pretty bad but there’s nothing like the rush of finding a diamond in the rough! It is preferable to go to wealthier areas as they will be given better quality clothes.

If you want to go straight to the goods check out Oxfam’s boutiques. Yes they will charge you more than most charity shops but at the end of the day, it’s for charity! Oxfam has completely changed the face of charity shopping and are selecting the best quality and most fashionable clothes to go in their specialist stores, you can even buy online.

It is worth taking note of the new season’s retro trends and buying them in charity shops from when they were fashionable the first time round. This season I would search for crop tops and washed out denim.

It’s very addictive searching for great finds but also very guilt free; you’ve paid half the price you normally would for your clothes and you’ve given money for chairty. 

One of my favourite buys is a Lipsy chinese style evening dress for £4 in Help the Aged  and a pair of DKNY black skinny jeans from Oxfam online.

In my opinion, charity shops are the hidden gem of the high street. Not every trip will be as successful as others but don’t give up, mixing designer with vintage is the hottest thing to do during the credit crunch.

Cambridge Girl recommends:

Oxfam Vintage, Friargate, Preston

PDSA, Orchard Street, Preston

British Heart Foundation, Orchard Street, Preston

British Heart Foundation, Sheep Market, St Ives

Oxfam, Bridge Street, Cambridge