Wardrobe weekly

Monday

 A nice fancy-dress outfit to start of the week!

 This dress is mega 80's because it's from the 80's!

 It's a kind of golden mustard colour but it looks a bit green here!

Dress 26 - Vintage via ebay

Leggings 20 - Primark

Boots - New Look

Tuesday

 My skirts are in a drawer so I quite often forget about them, but I wanted something I could happily wear with this jumper which is quite short and doesn't cover my mega belly!

 you can't go wrong with a black pencil skirt can you really?! Easy outfit.

Jumper & skirt 20 - Primark

Leggings 20 - South / Very 

Boots - Yours

Wednesday

 Casual wednesday.

 I love this jumper but I get very nerouse about wearing white, so I don't wear it as often as I'd like....

 I managed not to spill my lunch down it so that's a bonus!

 I love this little forever 21 necklace - their plus size clothing may be a bit pants, but their jewelry is cheap and cheerful!

 Arrow on quilt!

I had a sneaky trip to simply be so managed to take a snap of my pimp outfit in the altogether!

Jumper 20 Hat & scarf - Primark

Jeans 22 - New Look

Boots - asos

Coat 24 - Evans

Thursday

 I'm not Russian, but I love me a cossack!

 This is the boohoo hat I got last week. Very warm, but obviously gives you terrible hat hair!

 See what I mean?!

 I don't think I look good in grey as a rule, but I don't mind it so much when it's not a block of colour, and grey goes with everything so this jumper seemed like a good idea!

 I had almost forgotten about my bit shiny boots from asos, they're very bouncy to walk about in!

Jumper 3XL - Forever 21+

Jeans 22 - Asos Curve

Boots - Asos

Coat 20 - Tesco

Hat - Boohoo

Friday

 Lets do another pencil skirt shall we?!

 I love this skirt. I wish I had more like this!

 This entire outfit is stretchy so it was a comfy choice for a tired Friday!

 I got lots of compliments on this necklace at work (which is always nice, particularly when it only cost £5!) but I thought it sort of worked with the cosmic print on my pockets. Space rocks!

 I tried to get a pic of my lipstick which showed the true colour but even here it's looking too dark! I basically found a super bright cerise lippy for £1 in Primark which I can wear without looking like a weirdo! it's not too purple but still has that super bright hot pink look.

Jumper & leggings 20, necklace - Primark

Skirt 2XL - Domino Dollouse

Boots - Simply Be

Winter Parsnip part-1!

Yesterday I felt sexy, so I got rather overdressed for a woman just going out to get groceries..... having said that I was buying a (frozen) Turkey for Thanksgiving and a goose for my faux Christmas, which sort of made it acceptable to get all wintry and glam!

I feel hot in this dress (Barbara Hulaniki for George), and I feel sexy in red lipstick, so that's what I went for!

I casualed it up with my little boots and some Christmas socks peeking out the top, both from Primark!

Anyway, the reason I'm doing this post really is to show you my winter coat, cause you never really get to see me with my extra layer do you?!. I used to be much more concerned with the stylishness of a coat, but as I've got older I've come to the conclusion that I'd much rather be the warmest person at the bustop than the most stylish! I have two types of coats I wear at this time of year - puffa and faux fur....

 This is my beloved puffa coat, bought YEARS ago from Tesco of all places, (their normal range, size 20!) that has been repaired so many times because I just can't bear to part with it! I just totally fell in love with it's asymmetric shape and crossover high neck. I think as puffa's go it's rather unusual.

 What I have come to accept over the years is that although it is freezing outside, that doesn't mean it's freezing indoors.... public transport, offices, shops all have the heating on full blast at this time of year, which makes layer upon layers unbearable to me. I only need my normal clothing indoors until it gets to the coldest part of winter, and even then I just need to wear a jumper, so what I want is a coat that is really super warm to protect me from the elements when I'm outside, but can just come off to reveal a thin layer of clothing underneath when I'm on a sweaty train or in an over heated shop!

The other thing I insist on during the cold months is a big hat! I don't have loads of woolly hats, but the ones I do have are totally and utterly big, warm and fabulous! I love this big bobble hat from Primark, and I have a few other big woolly hats... they have to be big enough to remind me of rasta hats because I hate beanies.... my head is too small for them!

This chunky one from H&M is my all-time favourite, but the other one I'm very fond of (even though I'm nearly 32!) is this little fella...

Yes it is faux fur and yes it has ears. It's cute, but more importantly it's SO warm! Perfect with a puffa! A primark special and I think they have them again this year! I'll be back soon (when winter really sets in!) with my faux fur & other choice head gear, but for now, here are my favourite puffas and hats available online!

 Evans £69.50

Asos £15

Bon Marche £45

Asos £15

 New Look inspire £39.99

Asos £9

 Tesco True £35

Asos £15

 George £35

Asos £15

Julia goes plus size at Tesco clothing

 Are you sick of seeing fatshion bloggers in powerfit dresses? Yeah okay fair enough, me too if I'm honest but hey now, whoa there, I got something a little bit different to show you.... and it's NOT from Evans!

So now, as it happens Simply Be were not the first company that asked me to review a piece of clothing. I happened to get the Anna Scholz dress first, but before all that I was asked to try a piece from the Julia range that is being sold through Tesco. I have no idea why they asked me... the Tesco plus size range True is very much hated by me because it is (in my opinion) insultingly un-stylish and horribly un-sexy. Maybe that's why they wanted to draw my attention to a new plus size range?!

 

I am all for any new range of clothes for us fatties and after checking out the standard sized Julia range I said "yes please I would love to try a dress thank you very much!". 

 It is far too hot at the moment for this dress, but I take my reviewing seriously so I got dressed up anyway & made my mardy-arsed boyfriend take the pictures!

 The dress is made from Ponte-like fabric, quite thick and very stretchy. This is the 24 but I would have got into the 22 easily enough I think. This is as tight as I would choose to go though so I'm glad I went for the larger size! The dress is lined with a super stretchy mesh fabric.

 I'm really impressed with the quality of this dress, it's very well made. I also really like the length, it's bang on the knee for me, so for girls of average height it should be just below the knee which is a super flattering length. You know me, if I thought it was crap I would say so, but it's really well put together and I will absolutely wear this to work when the weather turns!

Lets be realistic about this now. This 'illusion' dress is very similar to the 'powerfit dress' from Evans. The fabric / lining / cut is pretty much identical so I suspect its one of those situations where the dress is made in the same place but sold to different companies.....

... I have a few reasons why the Julia version is exciting though.... It's £10 cheaper than the Scarlett & Jo dresses (okay that's the only reason I really needed!), and it has a much more quirky neckline - as much as I like a v-neck I do get a bit excited by this kind of angular shaping! In addition to all this Julia is new and I really hope that the range will be popular, maybe then Tesco clothing might realise that it's worth offering FOXY plus size clothing!

I really feel good in this dress. The flash shows up my belly more than natural light does but if you want to hide your belly then this colour block version may not be for you. Luckily they have a lace print version that would mask the lumps...

... the same fabulous neckline and shape but much more disguising than the plain colour. Available here. The red version I'm wearing will be available at the end of next week.

 If your more of a peplum girl then they also currently have this LBD. Both dresses (and the the red version coming out next week) retail at £35 and are available in sizes 16-28.

As it turns out I don't actually have any smart shoes that match this dress (I have so many colours and styles but they do tend to be anything but black and court-shoe shaped!) so I decided to go for something a bit more designer and quirky. I told you I'd show you my Tracey Neuls Dragon shoes one day ('Dragon' is my name for them not the model name btw!). I can't even tell you how prized these are to me. Only to be worn out on extremely special occasions!

I had to go for a matching lip with this dress didn't I?! It's a lip stain pen, from Primark of all places! The dress looks nice with hair up or down, but I was hot so put it up. I have pretty big swooping eyeliner flicks but you can't really see them in the pics :(

See how cool the neck is?! When I wear these kind of kick-ass ball buster dresses I like to wear some of my Dior earrings, and I thought my Dior Fangs would go rather nicely with the dress and my dragon shoes!

So there you have it! A rave review for a lovely dress! The Julia Range is available exclusively from Tesco, and although there are only 2 items currently available it is going to expand very soon - I can't wait to see the whole collection!.