I've spent more years than I care to imagine working out how to love my reflection. It might sound strange to anyone who doesn't identify as a woman, or wasn't raised as female, but the constant stream of messages we receive about how our appearance is the most important thing about us takes a certain... Continue Reading →
I should have known that getting older would bring wisdom. I guess it just didn't quite manifest in the way I thought it would, so I never saw it coming. People a lot younger than me are still better at putting so much of it into words though. I should have known that she'd dump... Continue Reading →
I haven't had a guest blogger week on Rarely Wears Lipstick since the days when I used to post regularly and wanted some content to schedule in before I went on holiday. At first I asked friends to write something, then I started to put callouts to my followers on social media. Every guest post... Continue Reading →
I figured that if '5 life lessons from...' was going to be a series on this blog, the next show I had to address would have to be what is possibly my favourite television programme of all time. Despite the fact there are only 14 episodes of less than thirty minutes each, Spaced had a... Continue Reading →
As a woman in her early 40s with a love of gorgeous underwear, I'm used to having to do a spot of brain gymnastics in order to imagine myself wearing a lot of the lingerie that catches my eye, because it's almost always shown on the firm bodies of young slender models. When I saw... Continue Reading →
When you're a kid, you can't wait to get older. Someone asks your age and you always answer in a very precise way, because you think that 7 sounds so much younger than 7-and-three-quarters. As a teenager, you want to be old enough to have sex, to drive, smoke and drink. Even in your early... Continue Reading →
On a recent lunch time jaunt to John Lewis with a couple of colleagues, we found ourselves discussing the relative merits of different sewing machine manufacturers. The only overlocker the store stocked was made by Janome, and my colleagues weren't terribly impressed by this. I pointed out that the Janome sewing machine my parents bought... Continue Reading →
A couple of months ago I spent a morning at work admiring a senior colleague's utterly immaculate all black 'power femme' outfit and wondered, as I often do, if I will ever get the hang of dressing like a grown up. You know, someone who always looks well turned out and appropriate in every setting.... Continue Reading →
For someone who has never really found her own niche, I'm rather interested in niche fashion blogs. They aren't always sites that you might instantly think of as being relevant to my interests either - as well as following a lot of lingerie focused blogs, I also subscribe to plus size fashion blogs, classic menswear... Continue Reading →
Before I started working at London College of Fashion, I'd not really thought much about fashion in a broader social context. I'd never considered how people engage with fashion and how it can be used as a 'way in' to discuss more complex topics. Fashion touches our minds, bodies and environment - often without us... Continue Reading →