Apocalypse Now-ish

Earlier on this week, I read on the Disney Roller Girl blog that ugly arse clogs were big news for summer. Judas Priest!

I had barely got over that particular shock when hot on the heels (cloggy, uncomfortable, ugly as pigshit, heels) comes the news from the Debenhams press office that come summer we will all be wearing... wait for it... Sweatpants. `

Yeah, you heard me. That last bastion of comfort dressing, the one thing you are guaranteed to meet a recent ex and his new girlfriend in while looking like a hot mess, is THE fashion item of the summer. Oh dear.

One of the highlights of my blogging life is receiving the odd press release from Debenhams. I love the Debenhams press office. I really do. They just pull together a load of sales figures and then just run with a story. They are fantastic. I will not hear a bad word said about them. Speak, oh wise gurus:

"The return of jogging bottoms as a fashion piece is great news. It’s undoubtedly the comfiest item of clothing in every woman’s wardrobe, and now it can be worn out to the shops, to a club or on a date! Our customers already seem to love this comfy style option, just like they did when leggings came back into fashion a couple of years back.” Um... Okay.

Upon further reflection, I realised that added to the fact that Nuclear Wintour has been spotted wearing jeans and flats for the first time ever, and - excuse my while I make a sign of the cross - smiling, this is a sure sign of Fashion Armageddon. It is the end of days y'all. We are all going to perish, clutching out green velour trackie bottoms and Vuitton clogs. DOOM!

I am imagining scenarios like this:
Just add the theme music from The Omen (Oh Fortuna) and a gratuitous shot of Sam and Dean (in towels!) and we are good to go. I just wish I could do whizzy things like flashing red eyes and knives dripping blood.

So Fugly! Ugg bag

What do you get someone you really, really hate for Christmas? Why, this very tasteful Ugg bag, of course!

Excuse me, Miss; your bag seems to have grown a beard

Throw in this extra special matching wallet for bonus nasty points. Nice one Ugg.

My, what a fetching wallet! Are you wearing it for a bet?

Render you enemy speechless by going for a hat trick: bag, purse and cosy, cosy, metallic boots.

Merry Christmas, bitch

Excuse me while I go take a very hot shower to wash off all this fUgg.

So Fugly! Kurt Geiger Baltimore peeptoe booties, £120

Let me say right off the bat: I like Kurt Geiger shoes. I may not be able to afford most of them but I can quite honestly say that I am yet to meet a Kurt Geiger shoe that I didn't like.

But I see the run of love is about to end. Because now, there are these. What are these? These are fugly arse shoes y'all. Damn, they look like they were hit by the fugly stick all the way down the production line.

Seriously, how much is going on here? Are those flames on the side? The metallic ones look like something that Nancy Dell'Oleo's (right, click to see the nightmare in detail) bad fashion nightmare might've puked up.

Speaking of old Nan, is it just me or is she looking rather good on her new image makeover. I am so glad she finally took out the hair extensions and bought herself a few skirt suits.

Back to the shoes... They are hideous and as if that wasn't bad enough, they also look cheap. To ask £120 for these in the middle of credit crunch mania... Why, it's like some sort of bad taste joke. Is it April Fools Day? No!

Kurt Geiger, please stop this. You are not just hurting me, you are hurting yourself.

Irregular Choice go matchy, matchy

Fancy wearing a virtual fruit salad on your feet? How about pink frilly shoes, decorated with teddies? Maybe floral booties? How about if you had the matching clutch bags?

If any of these are setting your world alight then, good news! Irregular Choice, purveyors of the sometimes good, sometimes bad and the frequently fugly shoe, have taken their production of quirky accessories to new heights. Observe:
Now available at Schuh. Don't all rush there at once, mmkay?

The shameful truth is that I kinda like floral booties and the fruit salad combo is starting to grow on me. With the right outfit - read, a lot of neutral - they just might work. It's like admitting to your teenage crush on Sylvester Stallone... I know, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Marc Jacobs shoe lurve and haaate

This Marc by Marc Jacobs boot is called Shepherds Bush. I'm pretty sure he got the "bush" part right but possibly the material came from the Sheep's, um, bush. Personally, I'd just like to be assured that no Yeti's were skinned in the production of this footwear.
Marc, there is no other way of putting this: these boots are crap and will possibly smell like dead dog if worn in the rain... and for that reason? I'm out.

On the other hand... (Or should that be foot?) these simple patent peeptoes in bright blue with cute red heel, are definitely on my fantasy shopping list. I know that at least Winona would approve. That red heel might just stop her from doing the full smurf.

Shoe images via: Kurt Geiger

So Fugly! Topshop pierrot hat, £15

Dear Topshop, please tell me, what is this? On second thoughts, no, don't tell me. I know what it is, what I want to know is: why?Okay, I get that you feel the need to underscore your place at the very cutting edge of high street fashion, your remit to show us that no trend is too unwearable to be left unrepresented.

I get that there are hep young things out there that are willing to wear anything (even a glorified dunce's cap) as long as it makes them stand out from the crowd.

Hell, I even understand that the whole circus trend can be quite cute. I love the odd ruff, and a pom pom or two can be fun but... Really? A clown hat? Did you have to take it all so literally?

Oh, and one more question: I noticed that you don't have this particular item on your site anymore; did you pull it or did a clown convention drop by on the off-chance and buy up the lot?

Just wondering...

So Fugly! Pink Soda abstract top, £45 at Oli

Have you ever had one of those moments when you're looking at an article of clothing in a shop and you just can't figure out what the hell it is? Is it a top? Where are the sleeves? Is it a skirt? How does this thing go on exactly?

That's exactly how I feel about this "abstract" (the clue is in the name people) top from Pink Soda. It's not the nicest of garments to behold anyway, but with all those multi-directional graphicals, I had to do a triple take just assure myself that it was any kind of top at all. And then... Eeuwww, crappy arse beaded halter neck!

I know it's summer and we all want to swan around, pretending we're in a tropical paradise, with sarongs wrapped casually around our bodies as we walk barefoot on the beach. But this hideous top is not the answer.

And don't get me started on the ridiculous pricing. It looks like something you'd pull out of the bargain bin at your local pound shop. WTF?!

Fugly Update- Warehouse silk print dress

A while back I wrote a So Fugly on this Warehouse silk print dress. The comments came in - mostly agreeing with me that the designers, while starting out with good intentions, might have been a little bit *ahem* high.

Make Do kindly offered to check out the offending item in the flesh and agreed that indeed the addition of the pelmet was an addition too far. And yes, I know that pelmets and peplums are the new fashion twist du jour but really, there is so much else going on with this dress that it is sinking under the weight of it's own fashion-y knicker knackers (I do believe that is the technical term...).

While doing my monthly scan of spam emails - which mostly consist of exhortations for me to enlarge my penis and buy fake designer jewellery - I came across an email from an avid reader who also happens to work for Warehouse, which goes:

I received your news letter today and it's such a shame you don't like the dress as it featured in Grazia this week, but you must feel quite strongly about it!? I hope you don't feel this strongly about the whole collection.

So let me just set the record straight on this:

1. I dearly wanted to like this dress but I got too distressed by it's full on OTT-ness. If the dress could speak, it would be plaintively wailing: "No mas. No mas!" while weeping softly and cursing mankind.
2. I can usually find something to like in any given Warehouse collection and when I do, I am effusive in my praise. Take this skirt, for instance.
3. Contrary to popular contemporary opinion, Grazia is not God. And that dress? Still Fugly.
   
4. Also, dear Warehouse person-who-will-not-be-named, send me some bumf about your entire Autumn collection and I will happily review the items I like.
   

The latest news is that the dress has been featured in the Sunday Times Style mag as a "Star Buy" - to which I say: there's just no accounting for taste, is there?

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So Fugly! Warehouse silk print dress, £65

Okay, so at first sight you look at this dress and you think: "ooh... pretty!" Unfortunately, the closer you look, the more you see and it ain't good. It's. Just. Too. Much. At some point, someone just sort of lost the plot with this and turned it from Oh yeah to Oh dear.I can just imagine what must've gone on in the design room the day this dress was created. It goes something like this:

Designer 1: Let's create the ultimate high street dress. Something classy and expensive looking with lots of fabric and a rich looking colour... maybe a hint of pattern.

Designer 2: Yeah, yeah! Something subtle but sexy, structured but daring... A nice long bell shaped sleeve. Full skirt. A slashed bodice to take the prim out of it.

D1: Ooh yeah, I like that! But I feel it's missing something here... Ruffles! A touch of pretty ruffle detail around the neckline, in the bodice, creating shape...

D2: Gasp! You are sooo right. Ruffles are sooo in right now. I have to say this: you, my friend, are on fire today!

D1: but there's still something... What could it possibly be? It's already just so perfect...

D2: I know what you mean... Hmmm... Hold that thought I'm just gonna go and powder my nose. *Snorting noises, followed by sneezing and toilet flushes*

D2: I've got it! It's brilliant!! You are gonna love it!!!

D1: What? *clap, clap. Sniff, sniff. Barely concealed excitement* What is it?

D2: It needs... A pelmet!

D1: Dude! That is so the missing it-ness of this dress. Now. Now it is perfection! Right, I'll just send this to the tailors and we are done.

D2: Like, stick a fork in us like a sausage, cos we are not only sizzling but also... done.

Yep. That's what I think happened.

So fugly! Toms shoes, £25 at Shoe Studio

Take a look at these shoes. Fugly, aren't they? They look like the bastard offspring of an espadrille and a deck shoe - neither of which managed to avoid a few slaps from the ugly stick in their production.

Now, what if I told you that by buying a pair of these £25 fugly shoes you would be ensuring that a third world child would get a free pair just like them to wear on its otherwise bare feet. Good idea isn't it?

And herein lies my dilemma. Because although giving a poor child a pair of shoes to wear, is a laudable and charitable thing to do, it still does not take away from the fact that these shoes are... not nice to look at. They look like rejects from grandpas old slipper pile. And that doesn't make want to buy them. At all. Which, I guess, makes me a bad person.

Thing is, I don't want to buy fugly shoes, that I will never wear, just because the action of buying the shoe will eventually go to a charitable end. That, to my mind, is not the point of shoe buying. I buy shoes, mostly because I think they're lovely, because I think they'll look good on my feet or look good with an outfit, for the sheer hell of owning another pretty pair.

So what to do? Well here's a suggestion: buy shoes because you like them. Then, if you're feeling charitable, go to any of the following, and buy stuff that makes a real, practical difference to people's lives:
Save the children
Cows n Things
Oxfam shop

Better yet, sponsor a child and provide them with food, clean water, education and healthcare. Then, maybe one day when they're all grown up, they'll be able to buy a pair of pretty shoes all by themselves.

And in other news... Shoe Studio are offering 20 per cent off any of their shoes until June 9. Just use promo code: FF20 at the the checkout.

It's here!

The way she were - SJP in SATC season one

Clothes! Shoes! Cosmoplitans! Gay best friends! And one ridiculous wedding dress. Sounds like only one thing, ladies: Sex and the City, the movie we've been waiting 4 years for is finally upon us.

Will Carrie get her man? Will Charlotte have a baby? Will Samantha ever settle down? Will Miranda ever get a cute outfit? I can hardly wait to find out. In the meantime I'm practising making the perfect cosmopolitan. I intend to watch this movie from the back row, preferably drunk and heckling. In fabulous shoes.

I've just been looking through the SATC look books on HBO and, apart from being shocked at how quickly SJP aged from episode 1 through to 6, I was also suprised at how underwhelming the clothes seem in hind sight. Guess that's fashion for ya.

The good, the bad and the fugly

The hits

The misses

Images courtesy HBO

See:
The wedding dress that ate New York
Sam, Charl and Mir go large

So fugly! Alexander McQueen shoes, £422

Erm... Excuse me... there seems to be a giant growth devouring the back of your shoe...

A tulle rose, you say? Nod to floral trend? Really?

Oh... um, okay. Sorry, my mistake.

So fugly! The "It" shoe has landed

So, the It bag is dead (can I hear a Halleluya?) but just as we bury one ridiculously overpriced designer trend, like the many headed Hydra up pops another one to keep us occupied. Ladies and gents, I present to you, my top 5 worst examples of the It shoe. 

In at 5, it's the American Retro jewel strap sandals, £256. From this angle they look like giant, squatting, jewel encrusted spiders. Nice.
At 4, it's Burberry's lizard and raffia sandals. Now, I've got to say this upfront, I don't think that these are particularly ugly shoes but at £450 they are ridiculously expensive and therefore open themselves up to ridicule. And also, I don't think the lizard got a fair deal.
Our entry at 3 is the... wait for it... the ultra-modern, glazed kid (I kid you not, ho ho!) sandal from Donna Karan. Relatively cheap for £195, they have the curved lines of a 70s Sci Fi spaceship. Oh, and also, check out the two-toned heel. Fugly spaceships for your feet.


The number 2 spot goes to the ever so glam, diamante heel sandals, £595 from John Galliano at Dior. If ever a shoe shouted LOOK AT ME! it's these. Not only is the cutout heel fully encrusted in cheap ass diamante, the buckle also has a tiny charm hanging off it. If Paris Hilton were a shoe, she'd be this shoe.
And right at the top at number 1, is it a shark? is it a plane? is it the bastard child of a granite work top, a shark and a plane? No, it's the super duper, all singing, all dancing, lizard (what, another one? What have these creatures ever done to you people?) and satin sandals. Check out those wings, which remind me, for some reason, of the flying monkeys of Oz. But there's more. The heel and sole are embedded with Swarovski crystals (all the better to bling you with). And there's more. Take a look at the geometric, floating platform sole. Okay, you know what? There. Is. Too. Much. Going. On. With. This. Shoe. Maybe it's to justify the £455 price tag but... Just. No.

It all starts here

I was going to do this whole post on the new trends for spring/summer 2008 but , that I got so bored with with muttering "seen that..." "seen that..." under my breath that I lost the will to live. I'll do it when I'm in a better mood and I'm not so thoroughly tapped out by all the packing.

I do have to say though, that the tidal wave of the "new trends" is already cresting over the horizon. Upon the announcement that stars will be a hot trend for the new season, ASOS decided to steal the march on everyone else. Here's the evidence:

ASOS do subtle: "What's that, sir? Stars, you say? No, I never would have noticed!"

But wait, there's more. Pantone names Cantaloupe, (AKA Salmon, AKA Peach) one of the top ten colours for Spring 2008.

We're talking Salmon here folks. A wishy-washy colour that's too drab to be pink and to chicken to be red. The colour that your whites go when you accidentally leave them in the wash with a sneaky red sock. I hate this colour. And guess what? Soon everything you want to buy in the shops will come in that colour. With stars on it.

Gah! Kill. Me. Now!!

So fugly! Ho ho ho!

While I cannot blame the shops who try to sell these things to people...

Lingerie-eesh! Image courtesy Peacocks

... It is my firm belief that anyone spending even a penny of their hard earned cash on them, should be shot. Repeatedly. Until they are dead. Horrify yourself, some more.


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So Fugly! Oh look, it's Boobyonce!

Hey, I'm not trying to hate on you Bey. Afterall, you and JLo singlehandedly made big booty beautiful but... What are you trying to do here? Did you get in some freak accident where your "front" got swapped with your "back"? Because, trust me, this will not cause the rennaissance of the boob.

Honey, you might as well have gone out nekkid from the waist up with your hands cupped under you bare breasts, shouting "take a look at these babies" (or should that be boobies? Whatevs).

All I can say is, put 'em away love. Afterall, we are not a page three model, are we?

See more fugly

So fugly! Rosanna Arquette, desperately seeking a stylist

So Rosanna, is that a tent in your dress, or are you just pleased to see me? Images courtesy exposay.com

I happen to think Rosanna Arquette is a stone cold fox. At her age most women are entering that twilight fashion phase of tailored dresses and well-cut trouser suits. But not our Rosanna. No, she's still rocking the thigh high boots and... the parachute!

Because what else can I call that pug ugly piece of fabric that is currently masquerading for a dress that Ms Arquette has insisted on wearing to the London premiere of Desperately Seeking Susan - the musical. Did she do it for a bet? Did she sky-dive into the premiere? Was she going camping and decided to wear the tent?

She could've done with some of that "bingo wing" material, to make herself a decent skirt.

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Ambushed by the fugly! River Island dress

So, I saw this dress at River Island online and I thought: this is my idea of a perfect dress. Red, tailored, with whimsical detailing and a plunging back. Did I mention that it's red? Then I went to have a look at the dress IRL and... what a disappointment!

That black band bit? It's this loose elastic thing that just hangs there looking tacky. And the contrasting zip in back? Is not contasting. And, well, the entire dress is just not what it should be. I'm just glad I didn't buy it online.

Let this be a lesson y'all. Be very careful what you buy online because mostly it doesn't live up to scrutiny close up. But you knew that already didn't you?

So fugly!? Victoria's Secret Lace up Bootie, $84

Okay guys, I need some help here. These shoes, are they fugly or just... different? I can't decide.

On the one hand, I'm thinking: A carpet, a brogue and a kilt had a wild party, drank a few too many tequilas, got into some kinky shit and then had a baby... Eww!

On the other hand, I'm thinking: I like the shape and the cute little peeptoe, love the chunky heel and the platform, and the red ones look kinda cool. They could go well with simple black skinnies and a tee.

Then, I remember that this is how I ended up with these disasters. Some nights, I still lay awake reliving the horror. *shudder*.

So, what's it to be? Fugly or Fabulous? Help me decide, before bad things happen. *cue ominous music, thunder and lightening, and the distant sound of plaintive wailing*

So fugly! Sam, Charlotte and Miranda go large

More horrors from the set of Sex and the City - the Movie. Not only is Carrie wearing the wedding dress that ate New York, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda are also forced to share the misery.
So here's Charlotte continuing the fugly wedding theme in her Transyvannian transexual meets flamenc-Oh no! dress. Look, it's even got bat wings at the back! All the better to fly, my pretties, fly.


Poor Sam gets the red dress with the frou frou - because she's the hot enchilada, geddit? The point is further rammed home with some fugly ass, white chilly pepper earrings. Miranda, meanwhile, gets the big blue house, sorry, dress because she's Miranda and nobody ever cared what she wore anyway.

Remember when you were a kid and you and your friends wanted to play Charlie's Angels but there was always a huge fight because no one wanted to be Sabrina? Well Miranda is the Sabrina of SITC.

Pictures courtesy Daily Mail