Sales wish list entry number 1 - the Mulberry bag

Today it is sunny, my phone bill is about to bounce from my regular bank account and my other bank have infomred me that they will be charging me £300 in overdraft charges this month.
I also have some new followers. Hello!
But let's get back to the serious business - the sales. We have already established fairly firmly, I think, that I will not be buying anything in the sales as I literally do not have the money. Not even a credit card of pretend money, which is probably a good thing. But then I don't get Christmas presents either and I still did a Christmas wish list, so what's to stop us from enjoying a bit of sales-related wishful thinking this month? Do let me know if you have your eye on something lovely, unless of course you're trying to keep it a secret in case it sells out before you lucky people with money can buy it yourselves.
First lets have a gander at Mulberry, still generally my favourite purveyor of bags despite their laptop-related sexism (no, I still haven't forgotten about that).

There are a few rather good things in the sale preview on Mulberry's rather unweildy website - mostly veering towards the less-girly, more utilitarian holdall as a lot of the prettier stuff they've marked down is touched with a tinge of the hideous or impractical.
First there's the Mabel holdall, reduced from £995 to £497. Then there's the putty smudged leopard print version of the Picadilly, basically a giant Bayswater, now £447, reduced from £895. Usually I hate prints on bags, but a grey-scale print on a bag this big and simple I will allow.

Both of these are still rather expensive, but this is a wish list and therefore doesn't have much to do with practicalities.
At the more affordable end of the spectrum there's the lovely Bayswater laptop holder, although this is still only available for 13" mac books so the less said about that the less angry I will be. The Ledbury, although a member of the Bayswater family, is a complete waste of time - it's tiny and frankly ridiculous.
But the one, and there can only be one, that makes the sales wish list is this;

A beautiful burnished antiqute gold Bayswater clutch, reduced to £385 from £550. It's a classic, will take a good battering in its stride and still look great and will go with pretty much everything, adding some relaxed structure to a slouchy outfit and adding a bit of edge to a more polished look. And it won't date, which is pretty important when it's still this expensive even with the mark down.

I also feel I should share with you the details of another event that I would love to be able to buy things at - the Elle MacPherson intimates and Stella McCartney lingerie sample sale. It starts today (16 June) and runs til tomorrow (17 June, obviously) and is at Bendon UK, Axtell House, 3rd Floor, 23-24 Warwick Street, W1B 5NQ. They're charging £2 to get in, which is pretty much all I have in my wallet right now. (If you're feeling generous I'm a 32d / size 10-12.)

In other news, I have now managed to draw on the sewing guides and pin together the pieces for my raw silk skirt. This took about two hours and was aided by a serious dose of 90's nostalgia with My So Called Life and Daria. Next, and most scary, stage - sewing it all together. I have a few misgivings about this, but will hopefully begin tonight. Stay tuned for the inevitable blood, sweat and swearing at the sewing machine.

Valentines gifts for boys

I really do feel sorry for boys. Not only will they never know how good it is to spend an evening in with the girls, but we ask them to walk an extremely slippery tightrope every year at Valentines.
For many men, buying presents is a bit like walking the plank - they pick something, close their eyes and hope you either love it or are exceedingly good at lying. Going for the obvious safe gift like some red roses and a box of expensive champagne truffles isn't always a savvy choice either, because although we say that it's the thought that counts what we really mean is that you must remember that conversation we had three months ago when we were dragging you around town and pick up on the single sentence in which we revealed, in code, the single thing that would actually make us happy on this occasion. We will drop obscure hints in the belief that we are being actually quite blatant about our desires and your obligation to fulfill them.
But, in all honesty, buying a really good Valentines gift for a boy can be equally tricky. And yes, boys deserve presents too. Especially if they are paying for dinner.
In general, men like useful things rather than Romantic tokens.
Clothes work. Shoes work. Gadgets, tickets to something you know they'll like, or really good quality leather goods are all acceptable alternatives.
A good pair of brogues is a perfect gift, especially if he's been wondering around in a pair from Topman for so long that they smell like a cheese factory.
Church's are the obvious choice, but there are a few cheaper alternatives out there. JFK has made me swear not to reveal the name of the brand I buy for him on special occasions, but a quick wonder down London's Jermyn Street offers plenty of ideas. I don't care how rare or expensive they are - trainers are not an acceptable Valentines gift.
Paul Smith, Jil Sander, Nicole Farhi and Acne are all great for good quality menswear and you can shop for yourself simultaneously. If, however, you are like me and cannot really afford any of these labels, Fred Perry and Cos are cheaper options which still deliver a seriously sharp fashion kick to a tired wardrobe.
But don't just buy something you think would look good on him. Rifle through his wardrobe and see what he likes and then go for the up-market version and keep it simple and classic - avoid garish prints and anything too slimly cut unless you are secretly coveting it for yourself and hoping it won't fit (which makes you a bad present buyer so shame on you).
From what I have gathered, what most men want from their clothing is to feel like themselves, but better, and to feel like you're proud to be seen with them, so your opinion is very important. However this is not an opportunity to buy them something drastically different unless you've sounded them out about it first or you risk looking like you're trying to change them (which you may well be, but being so blatant about it doesn't work). This is something akin to being given bad underwear by your boyfriend who seems to think that size 14 Ann Summers red lace is a good idea when you're a size 10 and like Stella McCartney.
If clothing is too risky, go for a plain black wallet in butter-soft black leather or a good quality leather holdall. And if you spend a lot of money and he doesn't, don't get angry. After all, the most important criteria for a Valentine's present is that you love it, not that it cost a lot.

Naked rambling

Not really truly naked. More like fully clothed but really liking nude coloured things. I've been catching up on my reading and there's a naturist feeling emerging from the blogs and that hallowed of high street trend setters Topshop which is making me a bit dreamy. A dangerous condition for a person in my kind of financial straits.

It's early still but 2010 is looking like it might be the year where I break with all my traditions - the year I stop hating wedges, leave London and embrace nudes and pastels. Well, the pastels might have their limitations as I'm not sure that looking like an early 90s M&S mannequin is really a great look whatever some designers might want us to think. And I'll not be leaving London permanently. And wedges on boots or shoes, but definitely not for sandals.

I'm trying to think of something profoundly interesting to talk about here, but I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of the blogging thing. I do have a story about throwing up in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge with which I have been entertaining my friends, although it certainly didn't feel funny at the time. Especially when I thought I'd got a tiny bit of sick on my brand new reduced-from-£115-to-£22.50 black and white aztec knitted lambswool-angora-cashmere cardigan of smug snugness that I got from the back of the sale rack in Monsoon in Waterloo after a one hour round trip around some of London's most depressing tube stations trying to find a working passport photo machine.

Thankfully I had recovered by Sunday when we went for a huge family lunch at an Arabic restaurant on Edgware Road with my uncle, the twin cousins B&T (I campaigned for B&H or G&T when they were born but to no avail) and their older sister A who I used to babysit when I was 15 and love to pieces. We consumed a pathetically small amount of this rather large plate of meat, but in our defence we had already had a similar amount of humous, falafel, aubergine dip, yoghurt dip and tabouleh...

Afterwards Mum and I went for a walk through town. Ostensibly she was joining me to hunt for some winter boots to replace my only pair which were a 21st birthday present to my self and are, unsurprisingly, no longer in the prime of their lives.

We saw many, many, many things that inspired momentary lust and a few other things that inspired the kind of longing that in other writers would result in some great romantic novel in the vein of Wuthering Heights.

A pop into the St Christopher's Place branch of Whistles produced quite a few of the latter. Sadly, lack of money and visions of my mother saying the word overdraft prevented me from purchasing any of the lovely things and we ended up mainly shopping for things for Mum.

She did, however, introduce me to the rather incredible sale at Fenwicks on Bond Street, which, as LibertyLondonGirl has pointed out before, is like no other Fenwicks in the world and now forms the crucial third member of my holy department store trinity (the other two being Liberty and John Lewis). I bought an exceedingly virginal looking white lace lingerie set by Elle Macpherson for less than a the cost of a bra elsewhere, which pleased JFK.

I also tried on this incredible slip by Stella McCartney. Possibly the most incredible piece of inner wear I have ever laid eyes on, it fit in all the right places, was the perfect colour and made me feel a million dollars. Sadly, the two hundred and something pounds price tag meant it may as well have actually cost a million dollars. But it now haunts my dreams...

(Clara Whispering Chemise in Blush via net-a-porter - not the best picture of this lovely delicate whisp of prettyness but ypu get the idea)

Mum, who isn't exactly the most fashion conscious woman in the world, but does that wonderful I-could-be-an-art-teacher-from-Hampstead look that only suits certain women really quite well when she wants to, said - "When I first heard about Stella McCartney moving into fashion I thought she was just using her celebrity name. Who knew she would actually have talent." Quite.