Tag: French Connection

Partywear Investments – 3 Festive Looks

This content has been produced for advertising purposes in collaboration with French Connection

When transitioning into the festive season, I often tend to find my overall style moving more towards a dressier vibe. I find myself re-kindling my love for black and whilst this may seem an obvious and somewhat safe choice of ‘colour’ for the winter season, I see it as the perfect way to play around with laying whilst styling together a mixture of different textures at the same time.

This is my favourite season to dress for, and I play dress up with my outfits on an almost daily basis. I’m quite often going from daytime meetings, straight to evening events and so I love putting together looks that can easily take me from day to night too.

French Connection has such a strong collection of beautifully designed partywear pieces and I feel they have really ticked all the boxes this season with a diverse and standout selection. I wanted to put together some partywear looks to share with you that really highlighted this, and showcased the rage of their new collection, whilst still being very much me. Like I said, I really do love playing dress up over the festive season. For me it’s all about having fun, experimenting and playing with textures, and oh my does French Connection have some gorgeous textures in this collection. From faux fur, to sequins, this really is a winter collection that has it all…

With that in mind, the Northern Quarter made the perfect backdrop to shoot the pieces from this collection, as French Connection as a brand has a strong creative background, with great craftsmanship and quality going into each of their designs. It ties in perfectly with the area of the Northern Quarter, as so many creative businesses have previously inhabited the space. It has also become a hub for the fashion conscious, who not only want to look good but invest in quality when it comes to their garments too.

Something A Little Different

When heading out for festivities during winter, there’s sometimes that fine line between wanting to get your glad rags on in order to be the belle of the ball, and wanting nothing more than to head out wearing the cosiest piece of knitwear that you can find in your wardrobe…apparently French Connection have decided you can do both this season, and I’ll tell you what, I’m all for it!

Now I’m no stranger to French Connection’s knitwear, I practically lived in one of their jumper’s last winter and let me tell you, they really do know how to make a cosy pullover. Something I’ve noticed that French Connection does very well time and time again, is a standout knitwear piece. I love the attention to detail that’s put into designing these types of items, from wonderfully embellished sleeves, to in this case, a decadent mesh skirt. The mesh panel is meant to be floor length, however as I’m 5’9, this comes up slightly shorter on me but I still love the way it looks, and it creates such a wonderful silhouette when given movement.

I decided to do a little bit of layering with this look, so I went for these velvet skinny jeans underneath. I feel the two pieces complement each other very well and I love the mixture of textures with the mesh panel and satin hemline of the jumper flowing over the velvet trousers. Not only do the two pieces combined look great, but of course it provides you with another layer of warmth too, which is always an added bonus at this time of year.

I felt a heeled boot finished off this look perfectly. I love this pair as they provide just enough height to elevate an outfit, yet they are still practical and comfortable enough to walk in. They are certainly the type of boots that you can wear from day to night with ease.
For the bag I thought a pop of metallic would work really well. This structured faux croc silver bag is one of those ultimate partywear bags that will go with a multitude of outfits. I prove this point as you’ll see it also works perfectly with the next two looks…

Velvet Jeans | Knit Dress | Silver Bag

Something Effortlessly Simple

This next outfit is one of those ones that I can easily see myself wearing from day to night when I have no time to go home and change in between, yet I still want to look effortlessly glam.

I was first drawn towards this wrap jacket, with it’s gorgeous jacquard print. Each festive season, I always find myself fitting some form of tailoring into my partywear collection. I feel a good blazer/jacket can instantly dress up any look and give it more of an evening vibe. I love the quality and fit of this French Connection piece, with its robust fabric and chic yet effortless wrap design, it’s one of those pieces that you could easily have in your wardrobe for years and pull out winter after winter.

For this outfit I made use of the velvet skinny jeans once again.They are such a comfortable pair of trousers and yet the fact that they are velvet instantly makes them look party worthy. Again, I teamed these with the boots as I feel the two work perfectly together and also do wonders at elongating the legs.

The buttoned-up shirt gives the look a slight masculine edge, whilst this gorgeous faux fur cuffed cardigan adds the finishing touch. I’m a little bit in love with this cardigan and whilst again it’s another cosy piece, it also looks effortlessly luxurious and unashamedly glamorous too!

Velvet Jeans | Shirt |
Wrap Jacket | Faux Fur Cuff Cardigan | Silver Bag

Something To Sparkle

No festive, partywear look book would be complete without at least one standout glitzy piece. French Connection actually have more than a few to catch your eye this season, but the one in particular that took my fancy was this beautifully embellished sequin number. This dress is the showstopper, the one to dance the night away in and likely still find yourself wearing it the morning after. It’s the ultimate party dress and one that will make you feel a million dollars (or pounds).

Again this is another beautifully designed piece with a modern take on the classic sequin party dress. It’s a dress that needs little to no accessorising, and so I’ve simply let the dress do all the talking with this look by pairing it with black heels and the (I told you so!) versatile silver party bag.

Sequin Dress | Silver Bag

So there we have it, a selection of looks for the party season, with something for every vibe and occasion. Now I just can’t wait to begin the festivities!

FC Link

December 3, 2018
Spring Layering

Recently I’ve been getting a little bit more experimental with my style once again and I’ve had fun incorporating more dresses and feminine pieces into my wardrobe, especially as we slowly move into Summer. Having said that, I’ll always have much love for my staple pieces. Sometimes there’s just nothing more convenient than being able to throw on you favourite pair of jeans, staple jacket and simple white tee, for a look that you know just works.

A few months ago I invested in this black Jigsaw jacket and whilst at the time I was trying to inject more colour back into my wardrobe, it didn’t feel like the most ‘fun’ purchase but I knew it would be something that I would get a lot of wear out of. It’s since become my go to jacket for most occasions and whilst the jacket itself is quite plain, I’ve enjoyed layering it over more colourful pieces, (like this very jazzy French Connection blazer), which I think works quite well to add a pop of colour, whilst still keeping quite a classic look.

I’m excited to share more summer looks now that the weather has started to (finally) warm up here in the UK…but as you know, the weather can often be hit and miss even during the summer here, so on days when it’s a little milder, I’ll keep replying on those staple pieces and a bit of Spring/Summer layering to see me through.

Samio x

Shoes – Jigsaw | Jeans – Asos | T-Shirt – & Other Stories | Pink Jacket – French Connection | Black Jacket – Jigsaw (sold out, similar here) | Bag – Pinko (similar here) | Watch – Cluse | Jewellery – Pernille Corydon

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Watch my recent, what I’ve been wearing video:

April 23, 2018
3 Things I’ve Stopped Doing

Small Changes

Now that we are into the second month of 2018, I’ve started to see myself form new habits over the past several weeks, or to put it more accurately, I’ve actually seen myself change old ones. There’s often that widespread ‘new year, new me’ mentality at the start of January that slowly seems to disperse as the weeks roll on, and I like many, can often see myself slipping back into old habits as the enthusiasm for change slowly wears off. However, each year I find myself implementing small changes that are often more of the smaller things that initially seem less life changing but in the long run actually make a bit of difference to the way I do things. Not everything has to be deep and meaningful but sometimes something as simple as saving yourself a couple of minutes when getting ready each day can actually end up having a bigger imapct than you realise. So without further ado, here are a few things that I’ve stopped doing…

Contouring

The makeup technique once reserved for stage makeup and drag queens, is now an integral part of many women’s (and some men’s) makeup routines. What started out as a faddish trend, quickly got its foot firmly in the door and decided it was here to stay, changing the face of makeup worldwide and creating a new area for beauty brands to cash in on. I like many, soon fell in line and before I knew it, I too was on the hunt for the perfect contouring kit to define my features and give me cheekbones like Naomi Campbell.

For years thereafter I tried a countless number of contouring products and techniques, and yet I’ve still never quite fathomed what I’m actually meant to be doing. Whilst I have found contouring (or at least attempting to contour) a fun part of makeup to play around with, I must admit that trying to incorporate the technique into my day to day makeup routine has been a time consuming activity that I mostly fail at. With that in mind, I decided to put down the contouring products and ditch the sculpting attempts, and if I’m quite honest my makeup has been much better for it…not to mention more time efficient.

I won’t say goodbye to contouring for good, let’s just say that it’s complicated and we’re on a break. It’s likely something I’ll save for evenings out or occasions when I have more time to faff with my makeup but for now I’m keeping it simple.

Watching Too Much Netflix

It was only last year that Damien and I succumbed to lure of Netflix. Looking back, I’m not quite sure what we did before it. Maybe we read books, or talked, who knows. All I know is last year, the most recurrent way to spend our downtime was to simply ‘Netflix and chill’, to quote the popular phrase.

It got to the end of last year and we’d watched so many films and web TV series, that we couldn’t even remember half of what we’d watched. It was at this point that I decided to make a concious effort to consume less web-televised content and be more concious of what I chose to watch. One month and a bit into the new year and so far so good. Of course I love watching some of the amazing shows on Netflix in my downtime but I also love other things too and now I’ve got back into reading again and Damien and I also love a good podcast of an evening too.

Making Excuses & Procrastinating

I feel like I could jinx myself with this one but one of the biggest things I’ve stopped doing is making excuses, procrastinating (as much) and instead I’ve just been getting on with things and getting things done. Now I’ve mentioned my struggle with procrastination time and time again here on my blog and it’s something I bring up a lot because it’s something I’ve found myself to struggle with a lot. One of the simplest ways I’ve eased out of my bad habit is by regularly reminding myself of one of my mottos (which I also wrote about in a recent post here) and that is – Your dreams don’t work unless you do. It’s cheesy but it’s also true and I feel this past month I’ve formed a habit of working extra hard and making it my priority to get stuff done. There’s no more making excuses of why I can’t do something and instead I’m telling myself that I can and then getting on with it.

Skirt – French Connection | Top – Similar here | Watch – Cluse

So those are just a few things that I’ve stopped doing so far this year. Hopefully these are some habits that are here to stay. They say it takes anywhere between 21 days to two months to form a new habit, so I guess so far, so good but maybe I’ll have to share a little update in a couple of months to see how I’m getting on.

Is there anything that you’ve stopped doing this year? Are you forming any new habits or changing any old ones?

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February 8, 2018