A Girl, A Style

As my last instalment for Mulberry month, I thought I’d show you my new ‘Picnic’ dress (any excuse to get the cost-per-wear basis down really…). Ever since seeing it on those red-headed models on the runway, I knew it was actually made for me – Emma Hill might as well called it the “Briony goes punting and picnicking and frolicking through country laneways with bunnies in Cambridge” dress. Or something like that.

So perfect was it, that despite the painfully hefty pricetag for a ‘day dress’ that I would essentially be mistreating by riding bikes and sprawling all over grass in, I’ve been thinking, obsessing, and generally fantasising about it since the day I saw it. In the end I got so fed up with my own broken-record thoughts that I just took a deep breath, made my peace with surrendering a large chunk of my paycheck, and clicked ‘order’.

In my mind, this is basically the exact dress my summer alter-ego – she who doesn’t have to sit in an office doing clever political things, but who spends all her days lying on grassy river banks gazing up at the sky as fluffy clouds drift by, having garden parties in the beautiful secret gardens of the Cambridge colleges, punting on the Cam (pretending to read Hemingway but actually just watching all the Chuck Bass-clones float by on neighbouring boats), talking to bunnies in the hedgerows (embarrassingly, I’m not even joking), and sitting on park benches with a box of Laduree macarons – wears whenever the sky is blue.

So of course I’m now finding any excuse to do all of the above as often as possible (wearing the dress, obviously). But despite all the outdoorsiness this dress is going to see this summer, I am going to try not to mistreat it too much; I’ll try to remember to take a blanket to sit on when picnicking, and to not fall off my bike when whizzing along laneways. Failing that, I’ve got an industrial-sized bottle of Vanish on hand just in case. Stain-attraction aside, the only problem with this dress is that the only accessories it wants to be teamed with are a tan, a Pashley bicycle, a wicker picnic basket, my Mulberry Tillie satchel and a tiny gold Alex Monroe bumblebee necklace. Do you think anyone will notice if I go barefoot all summer?

Those of you who follow me on Facebook might have seen this already, but there is also a little interview with me over on the Mulberry blog. The love is mutual!

And so, this concludes Mulmerry month on A Girl, A Style. I hope you enjoyed it! Would you like to see any other themed months on here? Unless you want me to pose in a leather catsuit or give line dancing instructions, I’m always happy to oblige reader requests.

Love, Miss B xx

P.S. Some of you have pointed out that I’m misspelling ‘Mulberry’ in the title of these posts. Rather than being unable to spell (I was one of those freakishly/annoyingly smart 6 year-olds who won spelling bees – grammar has never been my problem), it actually means “Mulberry makes me merry = Mulmerry”. Geddit?

Some shoes are so beautiful, it’s as though they’re a work of art made especially for your feet. I’m not talking about the kind of shoes you wear every day – the sort of boots, ballet flats and sandals that one buys each season when they need replacing – I’m talking about the kind of shoes that when you see them on a gilded pedestal in the window of a Mayfair store, you just have to stop and stare; the type that make your heart go aflutter, just a tiny bit; the sort that one daydreams about and forgoes daily coffee runs to save for.

Sometimes I can’t help but buy these daydreamable shoes, even though they are too beautiful to ever be worn. It’s not as though I purchase them with the intention for them to sit in a box at the bottom of my wardrobe, it’s just that a) I don’t want to subject them to daily abuse from pavements and bad weather, and b) the most beautiful shoes are often the most impractical to actually walk in. But this does mean that on those special occasions when said beautiful shoes do come out to be worn, they feel all the more wonderful.

However even I, from time to time, have to draw a line at those purchases where all practicality threatens to go out the proverbial window. For example, the other night while perusing ebay, I spied a pair of absurdly cheap works-of-art Chanel couture heels that I had been dreaming of for the past year. Since the shoes in question were actually two whole sizes too small, I contemplated literally turning them into art and displaying them ornamentally. But since I do not (yet) reside in a house equipped with an enormous dressing room where the shoes may look appropriate as an objet d’art, I thought it might look a bit odd to instead have a pair of shoes, as beautiful as they were, perched on the coffee table. That and the Clever Boyfriend would think me officially mad.

So, while I can’t have shoes on my coffee table, I’ve instead decided to turn them into actual art. Here are a few of this season’s shoes that are beautiful enough to be works of art.

L-R/Top-Bottom: Christian Louboutin suede platforms, Louis Vuitton velvet bow pumps, Balenciaga geometric heels