THAT'S MIINT!

I'm wearing:

Minkpink Stolen Moment dress

Pamela Mann tights

Topshop bag

Jeffrey Campbell shoes

River Island hand chain

A fashion blogger walks into a room.. and immediately scopes out the best spot for outfit snaps. Am I right, or am I right? I was pretty pleased to find that the bed & breakfast I stayed in over the weekend in Grasmere put these curtains up precisely for photographic purposes. They're so kind! But I really would've preferred something that coordinated with my outfit a little better. Maybe pink and white stripes. Or holographic silver. Or galaxy print...

I was in Cumbria for the wedding of one of Chris's university friends (it was a blast - especially with Ceilidh band Thistle playing), which meant it was finally time to debut my Minkpink Stolen Moment dress. This dress fills me with such joy - especially the colour, which is as rich and sumptuous as it looks in the photos. My only issue is that it shows up lumps and bumps, so underwear has to be chosen carefully; this is unusual considering it's thick velvet but is a small price to pay for such a beautiful dress!

I bought my dress from Urban Outfitters but have recently discovered Miinto, where this dress is also available. Miinto pull together the best of indespendent stores across the UK (including those very local to me, like Eternal Envy), meaning you can shop boutique brands right from your sofa. Miinto have given a proper miint £50 to spend on the site for one of my lucky readers - if I were you I'd put it towards a piece of Wildfox or snap up a cute Gentle Fawn kimono.

Follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget below to be in with a chance. The giveaway runs until midnight on January 2nd - so if Santa didn't quite bring what you were hankering after, you can treat yourself in the New Year!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

BEST DAY EVER

Last week I had my BEST DAY EVER. Well, not quite the best ever. Maybe the best day of that week. BUT STILL it was pretty excellent: after much mithering my mum found the furby my friends had clubbed together and bought for my 13th birthday (cheers Stigga, Stubbsy, Walshy, Ozza, Bozza, Tozza*.. etc) (*fictional names. Most of them anyway) and I was also informed I won a Self Service UK competition for some Wildfox Twiggy sunnies. WHAT. There may have been some dancing around the living room involved but I was definitely very excited.

They arrived on Friday and they are everything I dreamed of and more. In typical Wildfox style no detail has been spared, right down to the heart shaped box - neat 90s Nirvana reference there - and WF-branded dust cloth. Despite my expensive tastes I've never owned a pair of designer sunnies; my previous sunglasses have all met the same untimely end (drunkenly left in someone's garden, drunkenly broken on holiday, stolen from my head at a festival whilst drunk) so normally I am not to be trusted. But these.. these I'm going to guard like they were my own child. Though I can't promise I won't be drunk in charge.

I'm wearing:

Wildfox sunglasses

Wildfox tee

Minkpink Stolen Moment dress (just seen)

SUCKER MC

I first fell in love with Cleo B shoes when all the models rocked them at the Bottega fashion show back in April, and was overjoyed to hear that the Cleo in question is Cheshire born and bred, just like myself. I was even more overjoyed to receive an email informing me about a competition to win a pair of shoes by putting together a sa-weeeet outfit including the pair of Cleo B shoes of your choice.

I'm going to a wedding in December, and have already bought my (dream!) dress for the occasion - the Minkpink Stolen Moment skater dress. In normal land I would pair this dainty dress with stompy boots, a chubby fur, and lots of cheap hippy jewellery. Wedding land is a completely different ballgame, however - especially if you don't know the bride and groom all that well - so careful thought must be applied to ensure you're wearing something appropriate, but essentially still you.

The ideal Cleo B shoe for this situation? The Sucker MC. In pink.. duh. In fact this entire outfit is rather pink, a colour I wouldn't normally wear, but the dress just makes me come over all Clueless (but there again when am I not channeling Cher Horowitz in some way or another?) and totally colour co-ordinate. Jewellery can stay super simple - like this beautiful Pamela Love necklace with turquoise accents to match the Cleo B clutch - but elaborate headgear is a must for a wedding. I do think I will be buying this starry crown!

Look at the Sucker MCs from the side - a simple court shoe, with a graceful gold heel. The mother-of-the-bride will nod in approval. But from the back it's a whole different story - a gilded cassette tape, straight outta the hood in the 80s. Not that I have ever been near a hood, but at least if I won the shoes I could pretend.

sucker mcs by fashiondotty featuring a fur bomber jacket

Fingers crossed I win this amazing competition, as I really wouldn't want to be ejected from the church for wearing my Miista boots or yellow Dr Martens. If you'd really like to break my heart and make a better outfit, you can enter too - just post your dream outfit on your blog, then let the Cleo B crew know (via Twitter or Facebook) before 31st November. Good luck! But not too good, obviously.

BUTTON IT

So today I have mainly been counting buttons. Lots and lots of them. I actually had a super fun day sourcing the buttons - they are neither easy to find nor cheap, I assure you - pulling pieces from the shop floor, sorting into packages.. kinda how I wish my job was every day, actually! The counting of the buttons probably wasn't the highlight, but quite necessary: I would tell you exactly how many but this would totally defeat the object. It's part of a competition being run by Oasis Manchester at the Girls' Day Out, this weekend at Manchester Central (that's the GMEX to anyone who's been coming to Manchester for more than a decade); guess the number of buttons in the jar and you're in for a chance of winning a lovely Oasis handbag of your choice.

Come along to the event for another amazing competition - win a meet and greet with Peter Andre!!!.. and also a £250 Oasis gift card. NICE. I'll be there working on Sunday so please do come say hi. See below for a sneak peek of the pieces that'll be coming with us (all set out in packages by yours truly), available for purchase at 15% off retail price.

See you there!

FASHION IN A FIELD

Hello!


We have arrived at the time of year, dear reader, where you may decide to pitch a tent in a muddy field, drink beer, and dance like a loon. Many happy memories will be made at this time - dependent on the amount of beer consumed, of course. Sadly, I fear my days of festival-going are over, until I can stay in a luxury hotel for the course of the festival, being ferried to and fro each morning, freshly showered. The majority of festival fashion blog posts are not quite as realistic as Hello, Terri Lowe: whilst in my hotel-staying fantasy I could wear practically whatever I want, Terri cites a kagoule and wellingtons as your most important items to bring along to your festival outing.

I, however, am immersed within this luxurious festival fantasy, and my ideal festival kit is slightly more ridiculous. Keep your muddy mitts off my Versace! Don't let your wellies near my Wildfox! The tee is quite apt as Woodstock would have been my ideal festival to visit: three days of peace and music is right up my street.

(Hunter wellies are available from Daniel Footwear, and the very fabulous Sheree is currently giving away a pair at Glitz & Grime)

But worry not, readers, I haven't always had such delusions of grandeur. I've been to many different festivals over the years - my first Leeds festival I spent entirely in a t-shirt and shorts, and at Gatecrasher in 2008 I wore about three coats and tracky bottoms all weekend due to the horrendous weather. Funnily enough the best festival experience I've ever had was when my little home town of Northwich held Whatfest in 2009.  The only band of note playing were Dodgy, but that didn't matter - because all of my friends were there, the beer was reasonably priced, and actually if you got too wet you could just get your mum to bring you home for a shower and be back on the festival site within the hour. Perfect.

Sadly the festival made a loss and hasn't been held again, but I will always have the memories of the fantastic weekend, and the photos of the quite frankly bizarre outfits I chose to wear. I think the best rule of festival fashion is that if you can't have a bit of a chuckle at your outfits when you get home, then you didn't do it right.

Sneaker Weakness

Yeah, so I totally caved in on my longing for sneaker wedges. WHAT CAN I SAY, I have very little willpower when it comes to matters of the sole. I perused my options online like I was choosing a fine wine, but ultimately my shortlist became more like choosing cheap fizz from Aldi; I predict these shoes will reach fash-saturation point soon so I didn't want to invest too much (as much as I craved the Isabel Marant pair). 
This pair are from Boohoo; initially I didn't want carbon copies of the Bekkets but these were the pair I was drawn to the most. I love the colourway, and these shades go with most items in my wardrobe. At work today I received reactions from "those are AWESOME!" to "I like your little boot things, they're.. er, different". A day's retail work is the real test for any pair of shoes and I'd give these 7/10 for comfort. The wedge heel posed no problem but they are fairly narrow, so ended up rubbing my little toe at the very end of the day.

I've been leaning towards a slightly tomboyish, slightly hippy style lately, and I'm happier with my look than I have been in a long time - I'm tired of slavishly following trends and trying to stand out. I've been busy routing through stashed away clothes to re-style them and customising, too - these jeans started out life as Oasis Cherries. Being a denim despiser I was not impressed last year when I was told at work I needed a pair of jeans for uniform, to coincide with Oasis's relaunch of denim. "Jeans just don't fit me!", I protested.
Well, I hadn't tried the Cherries. These are the best fitting jeans I've ever tried and I'm now a convert with three pairs; the personal shopper at work says he only sells Oasis jeans, and I've met so many customers who swear by them too.
These were the pale denim wash which didn't really suit my style, so I attacked them with bleach, a sponge and a pair of scissors. 

I wore these to go into the city on Saturday and felt a little self-conscious; did I look a bit too 1990s retro? In the bad way, of course. I remembered the Wardrobe Angel telling me about dying a pair of trousers black with the result of them coming out grey, so I thought it wouldn't hurt if I put a light wash of Dylon grey through them. How wrong I was! They are now near enough black. Don't be surprised if they don't soon have another run-in with the bleach to make them more mottled once again.
What has this denim-related episode taught me? Absolutely nothing. I will carry on bleaching and dying as if I've never bleached or dyed before. That's the fun of customisation!

If you would like to try your own pair of Oasis jeans - or perhaps raid the sale, with tops starting at £9 (I KNOW RIGHT) I have a £30 Oasis gift card to give away to one lucky reader, plus a mascara and lipgloss kindly donated by Clinique Selfridges Exchange Square.
** This competition is closed, sorry! **

And you're DONE! If you don't have a Bloglovin' account let me know and we can work something out. Your email address is just so I can email you if you win - there's no adding to any email address lists here.

This competition closes on the 20th June at 7pm, and the winner will be contacted shortly after. Best of luck to you all. You could even come and visit me to spend your voucher in my store!

Gossip And A Dressing Gown

This vintage dressing gown was donated to me by my now-departed Auntie Jean, and has been hanging around in my wardrobe waiting for an occasion (and for me to gather the courage) to be worn outside the house. I've been easing myself into it lately, wearing it little and often, finding that it works a treat with my Aldo Rise shoes and lemon jeans; in the summer I'll be wearing it with cut-off denim in a relaxed pretending-I'm-at-a-festival fashion.

Yesterday I had a makeover at Illamasqua (thanks to Fashion Catalyst) and the make-up artist went a little crazy on me, as you can see here, then I went a little crazy and bought the deep teal lipstick she had applied.  I was told that the eye perceives it as a sexy colour, especially when paired with white eyeliner, as it is the exact negative of the usual red-lip-black-lined-eye combo. I'm more into its quirky qualities than its sexiness but if it comes with the territory then I suppose I'll just have to cope. Please excuse my hair which is in the extremely irritating growing out stages of a bob, flicking out in all the directions I expressly don't want it to flick in. And yes, it's all one colour now!

I have a few tidbits of gossip for you. Firstly I have recently started writing for the newsicmoos Fashion pages; there are only a few pieces up so far - including one about awesome up-and-coming shoe designer Cleo B - but we have some exciting bits in the pipeline, so stick with us for cool music and fashion crossovers.

I was photographed ages ago so I assumed it would never go live, but last week I had a picture and a tiny write-up about me in the London Evening Standard. 

Sarah Harradine is an international fashion marketing student from Manchester. Sarah is wearing a customized denim shirt from New Look, an ASOS skirt, Topshop Boutique coat, a Versace for H&M neck scarf, Zara bag and Kurt Geiger shoes.

“I’m very trend-led, so I tend to look at an editorial or a catwalk and then find a way to emulate it through high street purchases. My favourite designers are Miuccia Prada and Christopher Kane, but it’s the people on the high street that are the most interesting.”

So there you go!

Finally, and most excitingly, details dropped about London store LN-CC's latest giveaway a few days ago...

LN-CC are offering flights to London (who cares that you're in Essex? Travel in style), a three-night stay in a hotel, and fifteen thousand pounds to spend in store. Can you imagine what you could do in LN-CC with that much money? I can, and it involves a whole load of Haider Ackermann's shiny tailoring. Enter here by providing your email address and that of two friends you feel may be interested in the retailer. Feel free to use my email as one of those interested parties, but I will be expecting an Ackermann-shaped thank-you gift if you win..

Stay tuned this week as Fashion Dotty takes another road trip to Cheshire to visit The éditeur's pre-races fashion show, and Mr Dotty will be making a very special guest appearance, playing reporter for the night at Emporio Armani's Elliott Landy exhibition!

To Preen: To Dress Carefully or Smartly

Oh, Preen; How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Lately I have been gabbing non-stop to anyone who will listen, online and in real life, about how much I love the spring/summer collection. Masterminded by Justin Thornton & Thea Bregazzi, the husband & wife collaboration behind Preen, the Virginia Woolf-inspired collection was a step away from their usual deconstructed silhouettes, stretching from sweet pastel pink pixels to tenebrous ink-blot prints.







As a Preen fan, I'm in very good company: though I don't tend to follow celebrity fashion, I do rather like Carey Mulligan and her sixties chic style. Here she wears a Preen Collection dress at the BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards, sans accessories, bar a very unexpected pair of blue YSL pumps.





I was very excited to hear that this very dress - plus more from the Preen diffusion lines, Collection and Line - is currently on sale at BlackWhiteDenim. Click on over, or visit the beautiful Wilmslow boutique (just a short train ride from Manchester) to get your hands on true awards-season style. Perfect work-to-drinks attire, or dress up with skyscraper heels should that long-awaited Oscars invitation finally arrive.





I'm a sucker for glossy coffee table publications so I have been eyeing up Decade, Preen's 10th anniversary book, since my obsession with the brand began a few months ago.

“This book is a personal record of our journey for the first 10 years of Preen, compiled of images, sketchbooks, photos, personal items and moments that we have collected throughout the decade.” – Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi.

BlackWhiteDenim are giving you the chance to win a copy - simply "Like" their Facebook page and post your favourite piece from their Preen collection. My personal pick would be the Preen Line Bubble Jumper; cozy, chic and grungey all in one knit. Good luck!







* Apologies for lack of Tuesday Shoesday this week - as you read this I will be whizzing my way to That There London. I have a few exciting meetings scheduled so expect some cracking blog posts in the coming week! Also, if you view me through Bloglovin' or Google Reader, click on over to fashiondotty.com where I have a swish new look. Big thanks to Faye of girldoesgeek.com - I was quite nervous about the whole thing but she was very patient and the whole process was straightforward.



Images from style.com, nowfashion.com, glamour.com, and BlackWhiteDenim