Changing Textures

Whistles cocktail dress / ASOS heeled sandals / Accessorize necklace / Clinique lip care / Nars nail varnish / Boohoo Perspex Box Clutch

I think we can officially say winter is coming here in the UK (no Games of Thrones reference intended...)  By my book, when it starts getting dark before five and temperatures begin to drop, it means I pull out my warmest pieces of clothing.  At the weekend, my outfit of choice was the fluffiest, cosiest jumper I own, paired with a leather skirt (see this post), and this got me thinking about textures.

This Whistles dress is a beautiful, iridescent jacquard fabric which would be perfect for the upcoming Christmas party season.  The peekaboo detail of the wrap around skirt is right up my street and under normal circumstances, if I were to wear this I'd probably go with a standard leather clutch and monochrome heels - the safe option.  However,  I love these velvet-look sandals when you're trying to play around with textures.  The deep fuscia colour is really festive and cuts a bold statement against the pearl-toned dress.  I'm not often one for going matchy matchy with lips and nails, but here I think it really works to make the colour pop even more.  

I also really love the look of these clear perspex clutches, even though I do think they're horrifically impractical...advertising the contents of my bag to the world is not something I particularly want to do, but then again maybe I'm the only one who carries a specific purse I like to call the 'fugly purse' on an evening out because it's smaller, less precious than my day offering.  It is however really, really garish...not something I'm mega bothered about showing off.  And what about when you need to carry a bit of loo roll in case of poorly-stocked club toilet emergencies?  That would not look ideal.  But hey, for the purposes of this outfit anyway, having a hard cased bag would add yet another layer of texture and I have to admit, they look really stylish provided you have the right items on display.

To top it off, predictably, I'd choose a huge bejewelled necklace, but can we just take a moment to appreciate this Accessorize offering?!  The teal stones are eye-catching without being too bright and I can't help but be drawn to any jewellery with a '20s style to it.  You might not be attending a decadent, Gatsby level soiree, but injecting a bit of art deco glamour to your look never goes amiss.

So for me it seems that chucking on a load of textures can look more sophisticated than bag lady as long as there's some thought gone into it and a bit of a theme with the colours.  Why not challenge yourself to step outside of your (perspex, fugly purse-filled) box and mix it up a bit?