Max Fresh

Backyard Bill

I've always been dubious about these longer lengths. Having little in the way of assets anywhere else, I've never thought anything of baring my legs in nothing but the shortest of shorts. However, despite dubbing it 'the curse of the maxi dress' when those peasanty, floaty and somewhat unflattering floral numbers that do the rounds e.v.e.r.y Summer, there's something about this off-duty minimalism that has me yearning for longer limb coverage.

JM

It's Street

I still have no idea how to dress myself at the moment, but, again, let's hear it for the girls who do.

JM

Dressed

Charmaine Dresser. I don't think there's actually a better surname for a designer, and it's sure to provide fashion writers with plenty of catchy headlines and title puns (mine noted) for years to come. A fresh graduate from Chelsea's BA Textile Design course, and already catching the eye of The Times and The Guardian, she has exciting plans in the pipeline. Her website has just gone up at and is most definitely worth a look at for Huntarian Museum inspired macabre turned into splashy silk screened prints.
JM

The Patriot

This is not post 4th of July fever. I am not American. But there's something about those stars and stripes, novelty wear or not, that keeps that red white and blue firmly on my mind. With varying degrees of subtlety, it just depends how far you want to take it....

JM

Doing It Well

With a tag line of little more than girls on the street doing dressing well very well.

JM

Wine Stain

So at the request of my blog wife (that is what we're calling each other now right?) dark lipstick. Well not so much dark, but that deep burgundy that beauty journalists like to call 'berry' or 'film noir' or 'strong' and we like to go with err... purpley red?

After various attempts to emulate this Facehunter blonde I have come up with a few that almost, just about, fit the bill...

Mac Dubbonet, Topshop Vamp, Illamasqua Diablo

And no I'm not crazy, but the person responsible for the colour swatches at Illamasqua clearly is as this isn't some goth-lite cyber purple but instead a creamy Autumnal hue that really does stay put, a rarity by anyone's dark lip standards.
JM

The O.C.

OK. So these first surfaced around May, but around May I was still working on the Summer default, a look which can only be described as pre-teen-at-skatepark, all t-shirts and denim and dusty trainers. So come July when it feels like our brief glimpse of Summer has been and gone
I can now get onto the Autumnal luxuries of mesh maxis, heavy fringing, aubergine knits and sheer window pane checks. Thanks Opening Ceremony.

Opening Ceremony Autumn Winter 2010

JM

Fringing

Fringes. They're a conundrum that always begin and end with exactly the same uncertainty: the size of my forehead. A broad, high slab of pale skin that has until recently always been swathed with a bluntly cut curtain of hair. However a few months ago, perhaps informed by a gut of editorials with centre partings appealingly taking centre stage, or an increasing number of people thinking that I am of school attendee age, I decided that above all else it was time for a c.h.a.n.g.e.

Like some hide behind their long hair (ah the luxury) I hid behind my fringe, terrified of my own temple, and wary of revealing too much facial flesh. Six months in and its now hit chin length, the mismatched strands giving away my hair cut history without a hint of ever meeting up with the ends. It has taken a strong will, and with ladies like this around the will is most definitely wavering...
JM

#1

and so we begin...