Cheap chic minus the black eye

Hands off mon pull.

Image found here

As a fan of the occasional frivoulous fancy I am more than willing to splash out on a designer piece that I really, really love. The thing is, I am yet to love anything which may be subject to fading, staining, shrinking or tearing THAT MUCH - I aint stoopid. Generally my thrifty northern good sense kicks in and I put down the Miu Miu bag and walk away. Good girl.
Thankfully the well-established trend for designer/high street collaborations means I can get a bit of the bling for a lot less bucks. Who'd have thought my vintage frocks and Topshop tattle would hang alongside Vivienne Westwood, Christopher Kane and Luella, oh Luella (I love you TK Maxx). Today flame haired Sonya Rykiel joins my fashion throng courtesy of H&M. To think of the times I swooned over her stripey sweaters retailing at approximately £250 each. Now I have three and for less than 70 quid, Martin Lewis and that lovely Alvin chap would be proud.
Even better, these finds have almost always been by chance. You won't find me queuing at 5 in the morning, handbag like a weapon, ready to take out anyone who nabs all the size 12s. No, I leave that to the 'Look' readers and ebayers and wait for the storm to pass. A Monday evening stroll to the shops and who knows what you may find on the Returns rail.

Te amo, Barcelona

I have recently returned from a visit to the Catalonian capital and as always I now have a camera full of graffiti pics as I find it almost impossible to pass a well-tagged door without taking a photo. As the city is covered in spray paint I found myself having to stop and shoot every few minutes which admittedly was not so great for my weary travel buddies. The stuff that really grabs my eye tends to be the doors and shutters randomly plastered in layers of paint and stickers, however I also really like the amount of politically motivated grafitti that can be found around the city. During my last trip at the height of the Iraq war you couldn't move for 'No a La Guerra' slogans, there was even one rather majestically scrawled across the front of a bank in blood red paint. Hooray!

These are some of my favourites from this my most recent visit:


My Spanish is pretty limited never mind my Catalan, however i'm pretty sure that the first pic translates as 'Freedom for Amadeu Casellas'. Casellas is an anarchist prisoner that has staged a number of hunger strikes in protest of the conditions in Catalonian prisons. The fifth image I think loosely translates as 'Our life is Dada', a sentiment very close to my own heart.

Despite being occupied by photographing, cooing at all the Gaudi loveliness and looking after thirty 16-19 year olds, I did manage to squeeze in a little retail therapy at this rather lovely boutique Glint.

They had a really great selection of clothes and accessories by local designers and I went away with two really cool tees. The first was from a collaborative collection between the Barcelona based french grafitti artist Miss Van and the designer Anaoana. I was well aware of Miss Van's illustrations of fiendish ladies and it was great to see how well her designs translated onto cloth.

Miss Van urban.

This is the lovely Circus Horse tee I picked from the collection in a beautiful blush pink.

Miss Van couture.

I also purchased this ace tee by Cellophane Attitude featuring my beloved heroine Alabama Worley. I was very tempted to get the Billy Brown version too as I absolutely love Vincent Gallo's character in Buffalo 66. Unfortunately as those Euros don't go far nowadays Billy couldn't come home with me.