22 Days Till 30: Outfits of my (late-)20s

| Posted by Lou | The time is 11.30am here in London UK |

Lotte has requested outfits of my 20s, which due to the availability of photos I have limited to:

Outfits of my late-20s*

*captured terribly in an eclectic series of photos

(My early-20s can be summed up as: a bit shit.)

Let's start with one from New Zealand, the classic bright-red wrap cardigan that both Bel and I were the proud owner of (she bought it first, I do admit), and which I wore ALL THE TIME:

Okay so you can't really see the cardy... I just like this pic :)

I do still have it - it has a few holes in it but I still bust it out from time to time.

Here is my first classic London outfit - red trench-coat with grey tights. The trench-coat was donated to charity last winter as - though I love the idea of it - in practise it was too thin for a cold day, too warm for a not-quite-so-cold day, and absolutely useless in the rain:

This pic was taken on my 26th birthday, coincidentally.

Coloured tights are the archetypical look for me in the colder months of the year. I was actually known by our Managing Director for a time as "the girl with the bright red tights". Another classic were these green ones, which had a sad death in Brussels when I found myself having lost the elasticity of the waist to the point of having to ditch them in a museum bathroom and walk around bare-legged in 0 degrees weather till we made it back to the hotel:

These cobblestones are of the Dublin variety.

Another key winter item was this grey coat, which I picked up in a cheap high street store. The waist band was perfectly placed and the grey was just right. Sadly, it didn't survive past winter 2009, and though I searched far and wide I never found a replacement in a similar style:

Visiting Corrie

Lotte specifically asked for more pics of The Deer Dress, the most popular and loved item of my 20s. It is now cut down to scraps of fabric to be turned into a Mini Deer Dress for wee Rata. This pic captures it at the beginning of what was to become the greatest clothing crisis of my life - here I am in business class flying to Cairo after 30 hours trapped in Rome, little knowing that I would arrive to no luggage, left to trek around Egypt with just this dress, a pair of black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a grey top:

Though it wasn't the most convenient item of clothing to be stuck with,

I'm pleased that The Deer Dress got to experience luxury before being ditched.

N.B: I do not travel business class - it was part of the airline's attempts to get us to our destination.

My current most-commented-on dress is this Russian doll number (bought from the same shop as The Deer Dress (Joy)). I don't seem to have any full lengths, so here is the top and bottom separately, also providing an excuse to include my cute li'l niece:

Margaritas in Miami

A reluctant Easter Bunny...

This is my current key item - the Tara Starlet dress, of which I have two in the same style. (The other is navy blue with white dots.) This is the "fuck, what am I going to wear??!" dress as it seems to work for most occasions:

This is me and a colleague doing a choreographed

dance routine in the MD's office (he was not present).

But... what's with my facial expression?!

Future key clothing items to look out for include this coat by the Mad Men costumier, which shall hereforth be called my "Joan Coat". I would show a photo of me wearing it, but apparently their sizing is nuts and the medium that arrived yesterday is a gazillion sizes too big for me:

It is reversible (brown on other side), but I'll be sticking to teal

And there you have it!