Cashmere glorious cashmere - Uniqlo jumpers and the Tse sample sale

 This season's Tse collection - but last season's was good too

The nights are getting longer and colder and it feels like we've actually skipped autumn and headed straight into winter. But the change in seasons has its compensations and of course one of those is glorious, soft, warm cashmere and lots of it. Or at least I wish I had lots of it.
If, like me, you can never have enough cashmere (and I really can't on my budget) but you have more than a little (but not masses) of cash to spare and the time and inclination you should definitely hot foot it down to the Tse sample sale on October 27, 28 and 29 at the Camden Town Hall where the cashmere brand is offering up to 80% off its main, mens and diffusion lines. I'll be there late after work to mop up any remaining dregs from the bargain rail.

Tse, Tse Men and tsesay Sample sale

October 27(11 am to 8pm), 28 and 29 (10am to 8pm)

The Camden Centre

Bidborough Street

London WC1H 9AU

enquiries - 020 3227 1046 ext 0

nearest tube: Kings Cross

Otherwise may I recommend investing in a men's cashmere jumper from Uniqlo? They come in a vast range of colours and the knit is fine enough for you to tuck into a high waisted skirt or layer up in. They're cheap enough - although not so spectacularly as to make you severely doubt the quality of the wool - to just slouch about in too. They look great under a blazer and over a shirt with a sharp collar or tucked in to a pretty skirt and the cardigans are oversized enough to be thrown over the shoulders and not instantly fall off again. And I can't think of anything more comforting to wear underneath a duffle coat on bonfire night...

Cashmere v-neck cardigan in 32 Beige - Uniqlo - £129.99

Pure cashmere crew neck sweater in 03 grey - Uniqlo - £89.99

Or if you prefer something more fitted the latest Velvet and Uniqlo collaboration should be able to offer something more to your taste.

The fantasy autumn outfit - Carven and a bit of cable knit

Arctic winds are a-blowing in London today. The sun is warm and the sky is perfectly blue with litle white fluffy clouds speeding across it but the wind-chill and the spine-shivering cuts announcements from the government today just make you want to swathe yourself in layers and layers of cashmere. Luckily this season's trends are, if you hadn't already noticed, big on the chunky knit. But working out what to wear with a big cable knit sweater isn't always easy - a chunky knit can completely eradicate the shape of the person underneath so you look warm but slightly like an oversized cat toy.
My own solution is to go for short skirts and tailored coats or jackets, cashmere gloves and a good scarf. A short flippy skirt may not be the best option when walking over a windy Waterloo bridge, as I discovered during a Marilyn moment this morning, but they do look nice or you could swap them for some surprisingly forgiving leather shorts. A pair of thick black tights will go a long way to preserving any modesty you have remaining.
At the moment I swear by John Lewis' cotton tights, because I'm not meant to be wearing lycra, but usually it would be my beloved Falke Cotton Touch tights.
Below is a slightly idealised version of what I'm wearing today (obviously I don't have this kind of money so almost all of mine is ebay and car boot sale alternatives but a girl can dream)...

Let's start with the coat - mine is an oversized sharply cut black APC number that I found for £10 in a charity shop. I particularly like the pin-stripe lining that peeks out when I unbutton and roll up the cuffs. However in dream land this season I would have bought this and pushed the coat to the back of the wardrobe (or at least taken it to the dry cleaners becasue I wouldn't have to wear it every day or freeze);

Carven belted wool jacket with fur trim - $1660 from www.lagarconne.com

Underneath it would be a much more swish version of the soft cream cable knit chunky crew neck that I'm wearing right now which was £1.50 at the car boot sale and is actually for a 10 year old boy. The luxury version is from Prada, but here's anotehr alternative from D&G - technically a dress but a little on the short side without something underneath it even for me;

D&G Cable knit wool-blend sweater dress - £280 - www.net-a-porter.com

And underneath that would be a silk shirt buttoned all the way up to the top tucked into either shorts or a short skirt. The shirt I'm wearing is a very old, slightly worse for wear, grey, lumberjack, £1 Primark bargain bin find from way back when but I'd much rather be wearing this one;

Rag & Bone Marai silk shirt - £220 - www.net-a-porter.com

With this, which has my favourite thing in a skirt - hidden pockets;

Whyred Pasca drape skirt - £142 - www.urbanoufitters.co.uk

Some kind of ankle boot is essential, and a little platform helps navigate the puddle strewn pavements of London without getting your feet completely soaked. The ones I have on are desert boots (who came up with that name? how can anything suede with a heel be useful in heat and on sand?) from River Island and are a pinky-sand colour with a chunky rubber heel. But of course in fantasy land where my feet never hurt wearing heels I'd be wearing these;

Burberry Aviator shearling platform boot - £695 - www.burberry.com

I mentioned above that the sun is warm. It's also exceedingly bright so some sunglasses would be nice.

Zooey sunglasses - $350 - www.oliverpeoples.com

I don't wear a huge amount of jewellery other than the pieces JFK has given me which I am inseperable from, so one amazing piece like this would do nicely;

Bear Ring - $136 - www.leviticusjewelry.com

And of course a scarf and some gloves are essential.I like my scarves big and snuggly - a hood is definately an added bonus to this one and I could never say no to long fluffy Margiela gloves...

Ann Demeulemeester Bebe snood - £250 - www.brownsfashion.com

Maison Martin Margiela angora long glove - £185 - www.brownsfashion.com

And finally a cup of hot chocolate made with dark chocolate, 50/50 milk and cream, a shot of brandy and strictly no marshmallows... 

The not-quite-£10 challenge - Vintage at Goodwood edition

Having returned exhausted from a weekend at Vintage at Goodwood and jumped straight back into work, my brain hasn't quite caught up with me enough to produce a proper review or even filter through the hundreds of photogrpahs that I took. For the moment lets just say that I had a really good time and was more than happy with my experience of the festival, although there were some obvious flaws with the organisation and planning of the whole event.
It seems to have really divided opinion among the blogging community, but thus far Susie Bubble's take on it is the one that comes closest to my own thoughts.
Another post with more pics and some proper opinions is forthcoming, but in the meantime here's a £10 challenge special.
I've always been a big fan of the land girl look so was more than happy to pull on a pair of wellies made necessary by the less-than-perfect weather. When I was younger I was a trifle obsessed with the 40s and early 50s. I loved the films, the dancing and, obviously, the clothes. I have dabbled a little with the more pursit side of things, taking swing dance lessons and attempting to wear authentic vintage outfits from head to toe, although this isn't quite possible with size 8 feet. But in every day life it's just not for me - I enjoy dabbnling with too many different things to ever commit to one era and there are days when the thought of putting on full make-up is just too much.
But the weekend was a lovely opportunity to dig out some of my favourite vintage pieces and mix them with some of my every-day pieces to create outfits I wouldn't usually feel confident, commited or comfortable enough to wear on the streets of London.
I have a confession to make though - this outfit comes to a little more than £10. I did put together something that came to less for the Sunday, but spectacularly failed to take any decent pictures of it. This dress, which is a little snug, was one of a big bundle that I shoved into a £20 bag at the first Angels warehouse sale last year and I can't remember how many things I had in the bag so I honestly can't tell you how much it cost, but it was almost certainly less than £5.

£10 challenge outfit;
1940's dress - maker unknown - Angels sale - less than £5
Cashmere cardigan - Max Mara - car boot sale - £3
Army cap (with badge removed) - ex-Soviet Army - Portobello market - £4
Sunglasses - Anne Klein - car boot sale - £3

Total - £15

Shoes;
Wellies - Dunlop - Kilburn Army Surplus store - £12

One to watch: CLaer

I know it's still summer, and therefore realistically far too early to be championing a knit-wear brand that specialises in cashmere, that most glorious of warm fabrics. But the magazines are all trumpeting on about how to get the next season's look and outside it is decidedly grey and rainy, so I feel vindicated.
CLaer isn't a typo, it's just another silly label name. But despite it's slightly odd branding (seriously, the twirly wirly typefce they're using isjust not right) CLaer's clothing is serious stuff. After all you don't get much more serious than a knitwear purist who used to be in charge of all things woolen at arch minimalist Jil Sander.

The label's name comes from that of its founder, Hamburg based designer Claudia Laermann, who was creative head anf designer for Jil Sander's knit and jersey collections for 18 years beofre launching her own line in 2009.
On her website, Laermann refers to Cashmere and Marino wool as "noble fibres" that "caress the body" and "contribute to the feel good attitutde of the wearer", which is rather nice.
She also talks about "feminine coolness" which seems like a rather euphemistic phrase better suited to one of those breezy advert about feminine care, but no matter. What's important here is the clothes, and this is cashmere as it's meant to be - stupidly expensive but versatile and covetable and hard to get hold of.
Most of the new collection, which includes a gorgeous fine knit cape and some very, very chuncky cable knits, woudl sit very happily alongside the key autumn winter pieces from Prada, Celine and Chloe, which judging by the September issues of all the fashion magazines, are what we should be wearing at the moment.
But, even I was financially healthy, I'd quite happily not spend all that money on any of those collections, and just buy one piece from CLaer.
Although even the promise of the rarest fibres harvested by hand from wild goats and tiny baby rabbits and then rolled into wool on the thighs of Christina Hendricks in a process overseen by the ghost of Chanel with assitance from Karl Lagerfeld would never get me into an Alpaca playsuit.

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.

Lemsip and cashmere bedsocks

Today I am ill. I am in bed right now with tissues stuffed up my nose, stealing the neighbour's wifi as ours doesn't transmit as far as the front of the house. Because it is crap.
This post was nearly called snot rags and cashmere bedsocks, which was a bit too disgusting but i found it amusing enough to still want to share with you.
Anyway, I am alone in the house, have run out of episodes of Gossip Girl and Glee and am feeling very sorry for myself.
When I'm this miserable there are a few things I can always rely on to help make me feel a little less morose. Winning the lottery or receiving a pair of Louboutins in the post from a mystery admirer who wanted nothing in return would also work but they are unlikely to happen.
The first, and my most favourite thing in the world, is when JFK calls me little thing and strokes my hair. I have no idea why this is so amazing, it just is. Those two words from him somehow always make anything bad a little bit more bearable.
The second is Lemsip with Manuka honey. Right now the honey I brought back from my trip to visit LMWAI in Berlin is also working.
The third is some good old fashioned Jewish chicken soup, which reminds me of warm cosy feelings and everything good about my north west London childhood and my family.
And the last is cashmere. Glorious, soft, warm, comforting, ridiculously expensive cashmere. I firmly believe that a little bit of luxury is a huge help on the road to recovery.
When it comes to cashmere for the ill, though, the more stylish pieces, the ones you would wear in public, are no good at all. What you really need is a big cashmere scarf that was a gift from someone special or an oversized old cashmere cardigan you've had for ages that won't be ruined when you fall asleep in it sitting half upright on the sofa and drool on it. But if these things are not available to you (I only have one of them and I count myself very lucky as they are both rarer items than they should be), then the ultimate in sick bed luxury is cashmere bedsocks. They keep you warm and you are quite unlikely to get snot or vomit on them. They're not about style or looking good - they're about injecting luxury into the mundane and knowing that however rubbish your face looks, you are still wearing cashmere.
If you have a friend, relative or other who is, like me, in bed feeling sorry for themselves, forget chocolate and grapes, bring them bedsocks. They also work very well for anyone having to endure time in hospital, which is never that nice regardless of whether it is NHS or private or even if you're in there for something life affirming like childbirth.
Here are some of my favourites;

Brora - £45 available in Arctic (poncey name for baby blue, above), oatmeal, rhubarb and winter white.

Catherine Tough, £39, oatmeal and ivory

The White Company, £25, these are especially good if you are feeling worthy as a portion of the ticket price goes to Breakthrough Breast Cancer Charity.

They do some amazing chunky knit ones as well for £50.

And finally these, which aren't cashmere but are by Falke, so we'll allow it just this once.

Falke angora blend, £20 for twin pack via net-a-porter.com

p.s. Cashmere bed socks are not appropriate as stand alone Christmas gifts, unless you have some kind of weird ironic sock gift tradition in which case if you give anything else you are just cruel.