Admin: The Spring Clean

The bliss of moving into a house with a Sex-and-the-City-style walk-in wardrobe has motivated me to have a sort through all my clothes, shoes and accessories. My main aim is to give myself a bit of breathing space, and to end up with a wardrobe where I can find things easily and be inspired to mix and match more. I think that the philosophy behind any good spring clean is economy. Making what you have work harder and challenging why we spend.

Here are my top tips for storing and caring for your beloved pieces and generally having a healthy and inspiring wardrobe.

1) Have a clear out. Rifle through what you have. You'll probably discover old favourites and horrific skeletons in equal measure. Getting reaquatinted with what you have will ultimately help you optimise what you are left with. Try everything on, jewelry, tights, everything. There should be no escape. Weigh up how much you wear something against the value you might place on having more space to think. Sort the horrors into two piles.

1a) One for charity...

... consisting of low value items and knackered shoes. As long as it's clean, it doesn't matter what the condition the pieces are. Unwanted clothes can be given away by charities, recycled and sold for rags or resold in-branch. Above, my efforts for this Easter weekend.

1b) and one for re-selling. Have an honest think about whether you will get round to re-selling. If you know you'll struggle to get round to it then throw them out! Lesson learnt, don't spend so much on clothes you like but will never have occasion to wear. Below are a box of clothes and another of 10 pairs of shoes that will be going to Luminous and Vogue on Berkhamsted's Lower Kings Road. It's good to have a good dress agency on hand to resell clothes. That way you can recoup some of the money you have spent.

2) Aftercare. Once you have honed your wardrobe, you'll need to protect and store what you have decided to keep. As a vintage enthusiast I am no stranger to moths but they are a common evil in many a wardrobe. They can live in the carpets and love warm temperatures. If you find something with moths, chuck it in the freezer in a plastic bag. Leave it there for a week. To prevent moths I cannot recommend products like 'Gotcha' or 'Zero' highly enough (see below). The pheromone in these beauties attracts the males onto glue paper. This interrupts the mating cycle and over time the moths will cease to be a problem. Purchase one for around £4.50 in your local hardware store. They last for 3 months so they are worth it. If you can't bring yourself to kill things that are happy to kill your wardrobe (no bias from me) try cedar wood balls or lavender pouches but don't expect dramatic results.

3) Hang your clothes on wooden, padded or plastic hangers. You don't have to go out and get matching or fancy ones but wire ones can be damaging to clothes.

4) Invest in a debobbler and use it regularly. Concentrate on the parts of wool garments that rub - under the arms of to the side seams. The above is a cheap hand-held one from the ever-resourceful JML. You can buy smaller ones from dry cleaners or from John Lewis. The John Lewis version is £7. They don't last forever but they can give a new lease of life to knitwear and are definitely worth having.

5) If you can (and I realise that this is a luxury) try and display your clothes in a way that you will find enticing and inspiring. A friend of mine has all her jewelry hanging from nails around the room. All her shoes are on shelves. You couldn't help but walk in and get excited about putting an outfit together with all those treasures around. If you are the kind of person for whom, for example, accessories are always an afterthought then displaying them foremost might make you build the outfit around them first. Little things like that can rejuvenate your interest in your look and can kickstart an existing wardrobe. You don't have to spend anything on new pieces.

6) Enjoy!

Lace in Favour

Lace, broderie anglaise, applique - all looks du jour on high streets and catwalks alike at the moment. Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer collection is all over the fashion magazines (10 major covers worldwide). Prada's at it too, Lana del Ray was recently decked out in the look in Mario Testino's cover shoot for British Vogue this month. It's a look that has become part of internet sensation's signature style. Her look is Veronica Lake-Lolita and her style slams vintage up against ghetto glamour. Lana del Ray is always feminine, always coquettish (she is not averse to a see through buttoned-up). I think that it is the secret to keeping the look away from fusty.

The great thing about the look is that it's affordable for anyone to recreate. Regulars will know that I always favour vintage - it's a much more rewarding shopping experience - and for this style I would head to a mainstream vintage store like Beyond Retro where 50s and 60s clothes are easy on the wallet. The Shop on Cheshire Street (Brick Lane) is a great, if small vintage emporium. Holloway Road's 21st Century Retro might also be worth a visit - I love this woven, jewelled raffia bag - it's just the thing.

Above: Vintage Enid Collins bag is £65 available at 21st Century Retro

If vintage feels just too much like hassle, or if you cannot divorce it from old lady style, then the high street doesn't disappoint either. I have recently bought a Next lace top with unlined back and peplum waist (two trends in one piece). It comes in navy, fuschia or jade and is a rather reasonable £24. Topshop are in on the act too. Below, their effort is at a less friendly £175 and harks from their Limited Edition collection.

Going Up (in price): are these Philips glasses by a-morir (Kerin Rose). $250 is a lot to spend on such style specific glasses but I just had to include them because they ooze Lana del Rey. You can buy these from the website direct or from Liberty. Perfect pastels and gorgeously garlanded.

Bring out the gimp

I am so enjoying wearing this Amma Gyan leather jewellery - a gift from a friend who is very in tune with my lust for quirky handwear. Loyal readers and friends will know that I am a massive fan of Mor Jewellery (in Ganton Street, London). I love Mor for its uniqueness, for fusing textiles and metalwork and it's general spot-on-ness and Amma Gyan, with her use of moulded leather and metal, fits nicely into the same oeuvre.

I very much doubt that it was in Amma's mind when she designed it but I see in these Dot Rings a knowing wink to the ball gag (as modelled by Betty Page below and made infamous in Pulp Fiction). Maybe it's that it was chosen by a dear friend, or the fact that it feels just a little on the naughty side, but it makes me smile when I see it and I look forward to wearing it for years to come.

x

Baby it's cold outside

I have been leaving you to your own devices recently. In the cooler months I suffer and shiver and maybe, to tell you the truth, I just find it hard to get excited about clothes that are beautiful but fail to deliver on the warmth function.

Another reason is that I think when you are recommending items for people to buy, it is imperative that you have properly test-driven the product. Last month, with some excitement, I thought I had found a replacement for my trusty black cashmere Uniqlo jumper which has done years as a loyal wardrobe staple. Having found itself scooped up accidently into the washing basket one too many times, the Uniqlo piece is now child-sized and beyond service. The replacement pieces, I bought two Benetton Pin-Up jumpers at a tantalising £35 each, promised everything. And, even without images from their website to push the products I felt I wanted to shout it to the rooftops that everyone should rush out to get one...or two. But just weeks later they are covered in bobbles. Not a good look and typical of cheaply made knitwear. So I didn't trouble you with that.

One thing I can recommend for the long suffering cold of you are these Topshop leggings. They are thick and warm. They remind me of having my vest tucked into my pants as a child. They are high wasted - which means that if you are wearing a tight-fitting skirt or dress over the top you don't have that muffin top effect. They are affordable (at £18). And they survived the wash without falling apart, losing colour or shrinking to Barbie-size. If you wear leggings and get cold, get these!

Click the link and find them at Topshop for £18.

Baby you can drive my car

The character Penelope Pitstop is all about leather, the matching car, clothes and luggage and 60s glamour. And what better muse could you find to inspire the A/W11 collection from Louis Vuitton - a label with all these values at its core?

Also drawing heavily on the quality and palette typical in vintage car upholstery, my new best friend, Burak Uyan also uses strong shaping and beautiful stitching in the boots below.

There is something very mechanic fantasy about the thought of a brutish vintage car enthusiast having to manipulate and persuade thick leather around corners and stitching it authoritatively over the structures of a car to such elegant ends. Despite the strength required to craft these pretties, you can feel the sensitivity required to do so. As such you can see that these boots have probably had the same treatment in production.

Imagine Dita von Teese stepping out of a chauffeur driven, vintage Rolls Royce in a pair. Sheer vintage-lover heaven. Pure purrr.

Josephine de la Baume... sheer poetry

I have to confess that I am a bit fascinated with Josephine de la Baume at the moment.

She is a vixen...

...in Agent Provocateur.

Her pre-Raphaelite tresses and taste for vintage can easily transport her look into a by-gone era...

...at Kate Moss and Jamie Hince's wedding with husband Mark Ronson.

And yet she looks equally gorgeous in contemporary pieces too...

...in this summer's Mango ad campaign.

This is one seriously cool girl.

Peepshow

Alexa Chung is always beautifully turned out. That is not news. But the Yves St Laurent dress she wore to host the 2011 Elle Style Awards back in February was quite fascinating. A break from her usual coquettish 1970s school girl schtick, the dress fused 1950s influenced print with the trend of matching two-pieces from the same period. But it just wouldn't have been the same without the ribcage slash. On a dress like Alexa's YSL, a small flash of skin like this can be very seductive.

But the design principle of the whole piece has to be demure otherwise it will just end up looking cheap. The litmus test is really whether the piece would retain it's class without the peeping skin.

Below, the spellbinding Spring/Summer 2012 collection from the brilliant British designer Christopher Kane also uses cut-outs to create drama in conjunction with vibrant prints on otherwise minimalistic construction work.

Sadly neither the YSL piece nor the Saunders pieces are within the financial reach of most but with a little innovation it is possible to achieve this look by taking a different approach. At a recent premiere, actress Emma Stone wore a Luca Luca dress that used layers to create a peep.

Through simple combinations of high street pieces it's easy enough to get the slash-effect without shelling out. This week I have been experimenting with layers to inject a little bit of keyhole flirting with pieces from my own wardrobe.

Above: Customised, thrifted cardigan over a silk and satin layered camisole by Philip Lim label development.

One of my stock dressing principle is 'always check the rearview' but why just leave it at that? Below I tried out adding a bit of peephole interest to the back of my outfit.

Above: maroon Poleci t-shirt layered over a staple Topshop vest.

Above: Topshop Unique blue cotton jumper and Reiss silk camisole.

This might be one you have to build up to but have a rifle through your wardrobe and see if you can get into the mood.

Miu Miuccia

This 1980s Liberty scarf has just surfaced from the bottom of a scarf drawer that I seldom visit. As soon as it peered from under the other carefully folded silken kerchiefs I had to resurrect it. I think it's a great accessory to put a little fun into Monday. Apart from it's obvious, stand alone charm, what prompted me to pick it up in 2008 was it's almost spooky resonance in the current Miu Miu collection. I couldn't help but feel that it must have been hiding in Miuccia Prada's wardrobe before it found it's way into my hands in a quiet Portobello Road vintage boutique.

Its coming back to the forefront of my wardrobe seems as good a reason as any I'll get to step back in time to extoll the merits of another killer collection from Miuccia Prada's bottomless bag of tricks.

At the time Kirsten Dunst had been employed as the leggy ambassador of Miu Miu to seduce us from the pages of every fashion magazine. The campaign was shot in rich colours mimicking the small spaces behind heavy, red velvet curtains at a circus... or peepshow. Kirsten toyed with us like a pin-up in shrunken doll dresses and curtsied lasciviously in harlequin prints. Miuccia introduced the fashion world to separate collars popular once more in high street shops and with the likes of fellow fashion blogger Susie Bubble.

This collection is my own personal Exhibit A of Miuccia Prada's creative genius and is a testament, if any were needed, to the work of a major force in the fashion world.

Film Studies: Hannibal

Hannibal is a supremely stylish film and it is one of my favorites. I could watch it endlessly.

In this film, director Ridley Scott develops the intellectual fascination Clarice Starling had for The Doctor in Silence of the Lambs into a dangerous need for his approval that is not without oedipal overtones.

Hannibal Lector values good manners and taste above all. His charm is such that anyone who cannot abide by this simple code is just asking to be offed in some bizarre and vindictive way. So you can forgive Clarice's faltering professionalism when she wakes up to find that the old dog has bought her a very classic, Halston style Mark Bouwer halterneck and Gucci shoes to wear for dinner. After that you cannot deny that the man has taste and I could forgive him almost anything. This is classic 90s design at it's best.

Lit seductively in the closing scenes who wouldn't?

Sports Luxe - very, very frightening me

When I see trend for sportswear in all of the fashion magazines, I begin to worry.

(Above is Elle October cover star Emma Watson in Jil Sander A/W11 sportswear knit).

In the nineties women chose to ditch tracksuit bottoms with elasticated ankles for exercise purposes in favour of yoga pants and, more recently, leggings. In short, they were just more flattering. Now the fashion press is shouting about the look becoming a wardrobe must for every day. Gathered-at-the-ankle looks good on no-one, even if you have wedges on.

(The above 'sweats' are available from Aubin and Willis).

With the likes of Phoebe Philo at Celine, Philip Lim and Jil Sander designing extremely popular minimalistic collections over the last few seasons it was only a matter of time before Utility turned Sporty.

The look itself is summed up by Marie Claire 'Team loose, jersey trousers with a draped, racer back vest and wedge-style plimsolls.' You can see the pound-signs appear in the high street label's eyes as it dawns on them that they can recreate the structure and simplicity of their own collections with inexpensive sweatshirt fabric.

(Racer back vest top by Vanessa Bruno)

This is all well and good, and not untypical in the fashion world, and yet the worry is that to get away with the current trend for sportswear-as-daywear you will need to be exceptionally slim, working in fashion, have a healthy bank balance and you will need to be in heels. No pressure.

Let loose in the mainstream, this trend only gives women a license to team Juicy Couture velour tracksuits up with The Dreaded Sheepskin Boots for a truly slobby and unflattering look. This is real fright night stuff and enough for me to start having dreams about my teeth falling out all Halloween.

Rutzou

If you ever get the chance to go to Copenhagen, do. There is every chance that you will love it. Anyone struggling with the conundrum of how to look good in the cold could take the brief flight over to the Danish capital and learn some quick lessons.

Aside from their acumen in dressing for often cooler climes, designers are hugely creative and move less as a pack than I experience elsewhere. I loved the beautiful detailing and soft femininity of the prints of Rutzou's collections and have fawned over them constantly since I saw them in Copenhagen.

Join in the love by going to the website to see their beautifully styled lookbook but to put your money where your mouth is go to the Anthropology or ASOS websites.

Mental (Colour) Block

Trend CBT: Slowly and surely widespread exposure to AW11's gorgeous colour combinations are changing my behaviour. These gum-drop colours, blocked within one key piece are re-programming the stripe addict in me. As someone once said to me 'you can't have the same favourite flavour of ice cream your whole life' and I'm getting a bit bored of stripes. And this could just be the solution.

Above: Sonia Rykiel AW11

Above: Jonathan Saunders AW11 scarf

The moodboard for this look, and what it means to me and my waning relationship with stripes, is perfectly encapsulated in both the blocked colours of the 80s shutdown screen of the BBC and all those hours I spent as a child optimistically staring at it hoping for something to change...

Style note to self: Wear with black wardrobe staples and gold or brass jewellery (from Mor Jewellery)

Lesser spotted

Spots appeal for less...

at Wolford. Yes please!

Greater spotted

In May 2010 I wrote about stylists taking inspiration from Man Ray. And maybe it is a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Maybe I was just seeing something that I loved all about me because it's happening again.

Fast-forward to Stella McCartney's current collection and the stand out piece, a cut-out spot dress (below) and I am seeing echoes of Man Ray's obsession with the shapeliness of the feminine form. Maybe it's me but never-the-less I think that this is sheer droolery. I always think spots on netting are chic. They have a sexy, vintage, look-but-don't-touch allure.

Something in this (sell out on Net a Porter) piece obviously also appealed to Karen Elson who chose to wear it with panache to Kate Moss and Jamie Hince's wedding. Both clotheshorse and dress are equally playful, seductive, bold and gorgeous. Round of applause please.

Don't get collared

Nights are drawing in and the motherly voice inside my head is reminding me that I need a good coat. Wish Coat Criteria...

• Extreme warmth
• Timelessness - an investment piece that will see me through a couple of winters
• Versatility - it must that will go with everything and look part of an outfit, not a throw over
• Midnight blueness
• Collarless - so that I can go to town on scarves.

These two Acne numbers are mouth-watering. The first, below, is a multi-lapelled trench is beautiful - right at the top of the list, and available from My Wardrobe.com

The second is much more Minimalist but it remains classic. Available from Liberty.

Sonia Rykiel is also in on the midnight/collarless action. Loving the giant zip action but probably a touch one the nippy side with 3/4 length sleeves. Focus.

The next one is not great for all shapes and would sit better on a straight-shaped girl than me but you can't argue with the typical texturing that Preen have incorporated into this Teddy-Boy look coat. Available at Matches, this number's excruciating price tag is only slightly off-set by a cool grasshopper tailcoat at the back.

Now all I need is to stock up on gorgeous scarves. See you at the Liberty's scarf hall!

Festival for Less

Latitude Festival is just a few tantalising days away from me and I am in a fashion frenzy putting All-Eventualities outfits together. Because our climes are so unforgiving it is hardly worth investing in anything specific but if you are inspired by the constant pages of festival chic in magazines, and simply have to have something new, why not rummage the sale rails and get the look for less? This year's Glastonbury saw three days of torrential rain then one of scorching heat so you'd be wise to prepare for rain or shine or you'll find yourself looking into bin-bag chic on site.

If it's really sunny you'll need a hat so how about this 'Ditsy' trilby from Accesorize (was £20, now £10)? The beauty of a hat like this is that it'll squash into your bag and won't look the worse for it.

With trenchcoats being the exception, rainwear is always a stretch when it comes to fashion but it is a must for festival-goers. Given that the endlessly chic trench can be a bit more bulky you'd be better off in a Lightweight Parka like this one from New Look was £34.99 now £24.99. It is equally perfect for screwing up into a ball when the sun is inevitably shining.

Avoid the awkward tan lines by wearing a strapless dress like this soft denim beauty from Sandro (was €175 now €87).

And finally footwear. Whilst it's paramount that your feet are comfy, your shoes will no doubt get pretty trashed so if your dry weather shoes aren't a washable Converse type affair (you can get Light Oxfords at Schuh for £26.99 rather than the usual 34.99), stay cheap and go for something like French Connection's Nadalia trainers (was £35 now £25).

Last of all don't forget knee-high socks to avoid welly-rub and tights or leggings as back-up for when the temperatures drop the evenings and you can't be bothered to trudge back to the tent. Finally add rip-off Rayban Wayfarers (avoid the heartbreak of sitting on the real ones by leaving them at home) pile on the charity shop bracelets and get into the arena.