In the Nude

 

[Trousers and peplum top: H&M // Shoes: Dune ‘Olsen’ // Sunglasses: House of Harlow ‘Chelsea’ // Hair bow: American Apparel // Bag: my mum’s]

Hello, Google searchers who’ve found this post having searched for a very different kind of “redhead posing” blog! Sorry to disappoint, but it’s just my top that’s “nude”, not the rest of me. Actually, when I bought this, I was a little worried it would be so nude that I’d look like I was completely naked from the waist up, but with a strange skin flap around my waist. And with that sentence, I’ve probably just doomed myself to some even STRANGER Google searches, so moving on…

I’ve never really been a follower of fashion. Well, not after that one year in high school, anyway, when I spent every waking second begging my parents to buy me a pair of £70 sneakers (I know! Sneakers!), on account of how every single person in my class had a pair except  me (poor, underprivileged ME!), and how I would die – actually DIE – if I didn’t get to look exactly like every single other person in my class RIGHT NOW.

(My parents never did buy me those sneakers, by the way. Which was all the evidence my teenaged self needed to prove that they secretly hated me, and wanted to RUIN MY WHOLE LIFE, sob! Teen life is so hard, isn’t it?)

(You know how people are always banging on about how high school is the “best years of your life”? Those people didn’t go to my high school. Or they did, but they had the £70 sneakers…)

Other than that, then, I’ve never been a follower of fashion. I mean, I am obviously aware of what’s in fashion – I couldn’t really write about it every day without gleaning a little bit of knowledge on the subject – but when it comes to shopping for myself, I just buy what I like, and if I happen to be “in fashion”, it was probably just a coincidence. Well, polka dots and green dresses have to be fashionable at some point in any given decade, don’t they?

Every so often, though, the stars will align, and something I really like to wear will all of a sudden become fashionable. I LOVE it when this happens. I may not intentionally follow fashion, you see, in the sense of thinking “Oh, harem pants are all the rage this season: I better go and buy some, even although the sight of them makes me sick to my stomach!” but I don’t go out of my way to avoid it, either. I’m not one of those people who goes, “Oh noes! Green polka dots are in fashion this year! I’ll have to stop wearing them, or I’ll look like everyone else and not be the spechul snowflake I know I am!” No, I just think, “Awesome: I better stock up so that when these go out of fashion again I’ll have plenty of them in reserve!”

So it is with peplum tops.

I’m a big fan of peplum tops. I like them, not just because they’re the perfect combination of “simple” and “special” (And with a bit of 40s-inspired style into the bargain), but also because they’re pretty kind to the figure, creating the illusion of a waist on those of us who don’t have one, and easily hiding any ill-fitting waistbands / Perfect Fit Buttons / food babies or anything else you don’t want on show. I love them, and have bought more than my fair share of them over the past few months. In fact, I’ve probbaly bought your fair share of them too, let’s be honest here.

This particular peplum top is from H&M, who have emerged victorious as the surprise winners of the “who makes the best cheap peplum tops” competition, which is a totally fictional competition I made up right this very second. Despite being from what my parents would dub as the “El Cheapo” end of the market (Which is the same end of the market my high school sneakers came from, actually…), the fabric is nice and thick, the peplum full and flared, and, luckily for me, it doesn’t look quite as nude in real life as it does in on camera.

All the same, next time I wear it, I’ll probably try to steer clear of any light-reflecting white walls…