(Dress, ASOS (obviously); shoes, Christian Louboutin)
I actually wasn’t going to bother posting these photos because as well as the Christmas season stealing all my readers, the horrible light inside the house at this time of year means that this dress doesn’t look anything like it does in real life in this photo. Or at least I hope it doesn’t. (And no, that’s not my bra, by the way: I can’t wear v-necks without some kind of top underneath or I spend the night flashing people, which totally wasn’t the kind of party our friends had invited us to last night…) Still, I promised I’d see Dressember through to the end, so let the record show that this is what I wore to a party at our friends’ house last night. Because the dress is very simple, I decided to do my hair in such a way that I’d look like Little Orphan Annie for the duration of the evening:
(Oh, hai blurry iPhone self-portrait!)
My hair started off so big I had to turn sideways in order to get through doors, but as is its way, by the time we got to the party, our friends, who had been following my hair drama on Twitter, were all, “Um, where are the curls?” And by the time we went home? It was almost straight again. Ah well…
This hairstyle was actually a dry-run for the top-secret, would-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you event we’re attending tonight. I’ll be pushed for time, but I’m sure I’ll manage at least one blurry photo of me looking faintly startled…
(Skirt-that-used-to-be-a-dress, eBay; sweater, Mango; boots, River Island)
First, the outfit shots:
Now, I know this isa skirt and sweater rather than an actual dress, but in my defence, skirts ARE allowed under the Dressember rules, and this one did actually begin life as a dress: it was a strapless prom dress which I found on eBay and, knowing I wouldn’t wear it the way it was, got my mum to chop the top off and turn it into this fabulous, full skirt. I have it in pink, too, although I found the pink one in a charity shop, in an uncharacteristic stroke of thrifting luck – normally I just find bobbly old Primark sweaters and used underwear in charity shops.
With that out of the way, however, let’s see some of the out-takes:
Yes, Rubin is continuing his proud tradition of licking his own nose every time we try to take a photo of him. Even better than that, though, my dad is continuing his proud tradition of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the shutter closes:
He’s also in the NYPD now. Bet you didn’t know THAT, huh? No, neither did we. I was actually quite surprised when he popped into this photo and arrested me. I spent the night in jail after that. Funny how a simple outfit photo can end up sometimes, hmm?
(Dress, ASOS; boots, River Island; cardigan, used to belong to my friend Stephanie, but I asked to borrow it so many times she finally told me just to keep it. Thanks, Steph!)
“Christmas Day”. I think that has to be my most inspired post title ever, no? Can you tell I lay awake all night thinking up that one, folks? Why I’m not a world famous writer by now I will never know…
Anyway, we’re still at my parents’ house, awaiting day two of our annual Food Fest 2010 (Apparently my parents bought so much food they decided they’d have to split it between two dinners. If anyone who lives in their town is reading this, that’s why there’s no food left in the supermarkets right now: sorry.), so I thought I’d just quickly upload my Dressember photos from yesterday, which was, of course, Christmas Day. As you can see, I decided to celebrate in the traditional way: by wearing an ASOS dress, in this case the camel version of the blue one I wore a couple of days ago. That’s why they call me “Amber of the Twist Front Dress” now.
We spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, then exchanged gifts with them in the morning (No pony AGAIN, but lots of great stuff all the same) before heading to Terry’s mum’s to spend some time with that side of the family. When we got there we found that Terry’s brother John (he of “kidney” fame) and his girlfriend Jolene had gotten engaged that morning, which was such a nice surprise and gave us all even more reason to celebrate. Also, my sister-in-law, Lila, got Rubin a Snuggie:
What could be better than that? Other than ponies, obviously?
I was also really pleased to find that my parents had maintained the tradition of decorating the house using some of the “amazing” hand-made decorations I carefully crafted from cereal boxes and the like when I was a child. Here, for instance, is my attempt at a Christmas wreath:
They don’t make ‘em like that any more, do they? And thank Gaga for that, I hear you say! I made this when I was, I dunno, six? Seven? Twenty-four? I’ve no idea. I was obviously encouraged by my parent’s enthusiastic reception of it, though (I mean, that IS their front door it’s hanging on, although on the inside…), so I moved on to fashioning “candles” out of toilet rolls and tinfoil:
(Because most flames are purple. Are too. SHUT UP.)
Having been reacquainted with this masterpiece of mine, I’ve decided to go into production with them next year and start selling them in my “shop”. For MONEY. Get your orders in quick, though, people: these bad boys will sell out fast!
So, that was Christmas. I hope everyone had a fabulous day, whatever you were doing!
(Dress, ASOS; Shoes, Faith)
Well, it’s Christmas Eve, and here in the Forever Amber household, ASOS Week continues with this black dress which none of you will ever, ever see, because you all have better things to do on Christmas Eve than sit around on the Internet, don’t you? Hello? Hello? Is it me you’re looking for? Is there anybody out there?
The fact that the Internet is doomed to remain unaware of the existence of this dress would make me feel sorry for it (I mean, we all know how The White Dress reacted to not fulfilling its destiny, don’t we: it closed every damn restaurant in town, so who knows what kind of havoc this one could wreak? Actually, while I’m on the subject, Terry and I have been talking about that, and we’ve decided that The White Dress has a powerful control over the universe. We’re considering having a panic room built, just in case we ever anger it unwittingly: you might want to consider doing the same, because I think its power may be growing…), if I didn’t know that this dress will soon be out and about, enjoying Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, where we’ll be staying for a couple of days.
I won’t be updating tomorrow, obviously, but I will continue to dutifully photograph my Dressember outfits (don’t get too excited, though, it’s just a repeat of the blue dress, only in another colour) and catch up later in the week, once I’ve eaten and drunk my parents’ house dry and returned home to rest up in preparation for the excesses of next week. I hope Santa’s bringing me a corset, is all I can say. And a pony, obviously.
Anyway! For someone who’s pretty sure she’s talking to herself, I seem to be talking a helluva lot here, so I’ll shut up now and just wish you all a merry Christmas instead. Here it is:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I hope you all get plenty of ponies!*
(*Or whatever else you want. Preferably ponies, though. And maybe even some MONEY, because that’s what I’m all about…)
Tagged outfits
(Dress, ASOS.com; shoes, gift from Deichmann; cardigan: random store in Florida, about 8 years ago)
I’m going to call this week ‘ASOS Week’. I know it’s more traditionally known as Advent, or The Week Before Christmas, or SNOW HELL or whatever (actually, just speaking of that, it occurred to me that after the last two winters, our seasons will probably have to be re-named, and we will have Spring, Summer, Autumn and SNOW HELL), but for me it’s going to be ASOS week. It’s completely unintentional, but every year one retailer will suddenly begin making clothes as if with me, and me alone, in mind. Item after item they will produce, and every one I will covet, and will probably buy. Every time I look at that retailer’s website, I will see something that seems to cry “AMBER! AMBER! BUY ME! LOVE ME! THEN, IN A FEW MONTHS, COMPLETELY DISCARD ME IN FAVOUR OF SOMETHING ELSE!” And so it goes.
Most of the time, as you’ll have seen from my frenzied holiday shopping last week, Zara (and occasionally Mango) will shoulder the burden of being named Official Outfitters to the Amber. This year, however, ASOS.com stepped up to the plate, and I suddenly found myself in possession of, um, more than one of their dresses. In fact, I even own more than one of this very dress you see me wearing today, as you’ll see later in ASOS week.
But enough of this dress chatter, for today I have more serious matters to discuss. This morning, you see, I was accused of something so shocking I can hardly bring myself to type it. Yes, people, someone used the comments section of The Fashion Police to accuse me of… of…oh God, I just can’t say it… to accuse me of running adverts on my websites in order to MAKE MONEY. The person said that it was “pretty clear what I was about” and that what I was about was “MONEY” (their caps), and that I was making this MONEY while… wait for it… “lurking as a real fashion site.” (Their poor command of English. “Lurking”? Really? I DO NOT LURK!)
I. AM. SO. BUSTED.
I mean, I don’t know how they found me out, or what Scooby Doo-style shenanigans went into uncovering my clever and dastardly conspiracy, but I can see I’m dealing with a powerful foe here, so I’m just going to hold my hands up and admit it: it’s true, people. I AM placing adverts on my websites in order to make money. I know, it’s shocking. I’m sorry. Here, have a sniff off the smelling salts, quick…
I just don’t know what gave it away. I’d always assumed I’d covered my tracks pretty well all these longs years, and that no one would ever suspect that my true motive in having adverts on the sites was the making of money. (Sorry: MONEY.) I thought people would look at the adverts and think they were, I dunno, just pretty pictures or something? I thought people would look at the number of blogs I have, and the amount of posts that go on to them every day, and think I just had a helluva lot of time on my hands?
I don’t, though. In fact, I’m just a dastardly money-maker, and it’s time I stopped living a lie, readers. So now you know. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me…
A MONEY maker, lurking as a real fashion blog
P.S. I can’t believe I forgot to mention that as well as being accused of making MONEY, the person also charged me with the offence of BEING A SHOP. Apparently all of the posts I write on The Fashion Police are actually thinly veiled adverts for “my” products, which I sell in my “shop”. And I advertise them by writing posts talking about how ugly the things are, in some kind of twisted bid to make people disagree with me and then punish me by buying the thing from me, presumably. Seriously, you couldn’t make this up…
Tagged I am not a shop, outfits
(Dress, ASOS.com; boots, River Island)
Well, as you can see from the snowy backdrop, we did make it back home safely last night, although, us being us, I wouldn’t exactly say we managed it smoothly…
The first stage of the journey went suspiciously well: after a couple of days of watching news reports depicting airports that looked a lot like refuge camps, we were totally amazed to find our flight was on time – in fact, I actually didn’t believe it until we were actually in the air. Let’s not even begin to talk about the preparations I’d made for the airport, which involved a complete change of clothes and several changes of underwear in my carry-on, plus, er, two coats and two thick cardigans, some of which I was actually wearing at the time, on account of having maxed out my luggage allowance: whoops.
(SO much fun going through security when you’re carrying or wearing almost the entire contents of your wardrobe: SO much fun…)
Anyway! We landed at Glasgow safely (“There’s freezing fog at Glasgow,” the pilot intoned solemnly, “so the autopilot will be landing us,” at which I instantly imagined the blow-up pilot from Airplane inflating and taking control of the plane….), and even managed to collect our luggage without becoming trapped in the airport for any great length of time. I knew it was all too good to be true, though, and that there was no possible way we’d get home without at least SOME drama, and, sure enough, when we got to the long-stay car park, where we’d left my car, we discovered that the brakes on the rear wheels had frozen solid, rendering the car un-drivable – a situation that had a strange air of inevitability about it.
Now, this is a little trick my car likes to keep up its sleeves and bring out on odd occasions, if it feels it isn’t getting enough attention from me. Normally the problem can be resolved by leaving the handbrake off and stepping really hard on the foot brake a couple of times, but not this time, obviously. No, this time the wheel was well and truly stuck, and when it had remained well and truly stuck for the best part of an hour, we decided it was time to call in the AA – and I refer here to the Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous, although who knows, if this weather continues, I may end up having to give them a quick call, too,
“No problem,” said the AA when Terry presented them with our tale of stuck-in-the-long-stay-car park woe, “Just remain inside the freezing cold car for two or three hours, and after that we’ll give you a call and let you know when we might be able to help you. Oh, and also: it may well take more than two or three hours. Happy Christmas!”
Well. Obviously this was not the homecoming we had anticipated. Or actually, no, it kind of WAS the homecoming I’d anticipated, to be honest: one of the good things about being a complete pessimist is that you DO occasionally find yourself in the happy position of being able to say “I told you so,” even if that does happen at the expense of your spending three hours in a car, in the snow. (The long-stay car park is a few miles from the airport, and, indeed, from civilization, so we couldn’t even go back there to join the other refugees holidaymakers). I’m not going to lie to you, readers: I may have had a small hissy fit at this point, as the irony of having made it all the way back from Tenerife only to be stuck for hours in a car park in Glasgow sunk in. I may also have begged Terry to walk back to the airport with me and book us onto the very first flight we could find to somewhere reasonably warm. “After all, we have all our summer stuff with us!” I reasoned, slightly hysterically.
It was not to be, though. Rather than just wait helplessly for the AA (and listen to me whining the whole time), Terry decided to pass the time by continuing to try and free the stuck wheel himself, and he eventually managed to do this, by spinning the car in what he called “doughnuts”, and what I called, “stupid-ass slidy circles” on the icy car park surface, me his helpless accomplice in the passenger seat. Finally, the wheel unlocked: we were on our way home…
And now, here we are. Although we’d left the heating on a timer, and Terry’s mum had come in that morning to start heating the place up for us, the house was still like the inside of a freezer, so we were forced to spend an uncomfortable night, both of us bundled up in as many layers as we could find, with Rubin (who we’d collected from my parents on the way home) draped over the top of us both, like a rug. We didn’t get much sleep. That whole “next available flight” plan is still sounding pretty good to me, to be completely honest.
As for Dressember, well, I have been managing to keep up the challenge, with yesterday the first day on which I didn’t wear a dress: well, I had no idea how long we’d be stuck in the airport, so I figured it was probably best to just go for the most comfortable outfit possible. That was my first fail, although as the more observant of you will have noticed, I haven’t managed to document each day, mostly because the dresses I was wearing were just repeats of the ones I’d already photographed, and it didn’t seem worth the effort of wrestling with the hotel wi-fi every day just to show you all photos of the same old outfits. Now that I have access to my full wardrobe AND a fast Internet connection, though, there will be no stopping me. That sounded a bit like a threat, didn’t it?
Anyway, we’re not exactly thrilled to be back in the cold, but we’re looking forward to Christmas, and the holiday was so much fun it made every second of the travel drama (which really wasn’t so very dramatic at all, compared to what some people had to go through this week) worthwhile. So: what did I miss?
(Dress, Zara; shoes, eBay)
Yes, yes, I know: I’ve worn my hair in exactly the same way almost every day since I’ve been here. In fact, they’ve stopped calling me “Sailor Amber” and are now calling me “Girl With Only One Hairstyle”. It’s one part laziness and one part Holiday Hair, in which the sunshine, different water and travel hairdryer all combine to turn my hair into one lanky and yet frizzy mess: awesome!
As the last few days of the holiday approach, I’ve started to worry, not only about the flight home itself, but about the possibility that th flight home might not happen without another 18-hour delay or something: the news this morning carries the usual stories of airport closures and general chaos back home due to the OMGSNOW. One day we’ll get to take a trip without airport stress at either end of it. One day.
Meanwhile, we can’t get over how lucky we are to be enjoying such beautiful weather still. I think the UK must somehow be sucking up all of the bad weather in the universe right now. Good for us, of course, but kind of sucky for everyone at home.
(Me speaking to my mum on the phone: she was telling me all about the latest snowfall, and how they’ve only seen Royal Fail twice in the past three weeks or something – and I really wish I was exaggerating about that. On the plus side, apparently my mum has been able to wear her Russian hat, and Rubin is finding plenty of opportunities to wear his coat, so every snow cloud, silver lining, and all that.)
And now my sunlounger awaits. See you all tomorrow!
Tagged outfits, tenerife, tenerife 2010
(Dress, PinUp Couture; Shoes, River Island)
Well, the wonderful weather we’ve been having broke dramatically last night, with a storm which whipped up just as we took these photos, thus explaining my more-than-usually-gormless expression, plus the fact that I look like I’m wearing a huge petticoat under my dress (I’m not, it’s just the wind. Even I wouldn’t bring a tulle petticoat on holiday with me. Or not very often, anyway.).
Of course, to a sailor such as myself, a rainstorm is nothing, and luckily for us, the sun came back out this morning. We’re hearing disturbing reports from home, though, about a new BIG FREEZE and THE END OF THE WORLD etc, etc, so no complaints here about a bit of rain, nosiree. If it’s true that Royal Fail STILL haven’t managed to get their act together and deliver the parcels I ordered in NOVEMBER, however, there will probably be complaining. Probably quite a bit of it, it’s only fair to warn you.
For now, though, it’s still hot and sunny, and that’s more than good enough for us…
Tagged outfits, tenerife, tenerife 2010
(Dress, Zara; shoes, thrifted)
You see this dress, people? This dress carries a powerful curse, a curse that can only be broken by… actually , I have no idea how the curse can be broken. I expect it involves shopping, though.
See, for the anniversary of T-Day (Transplant Day), Terry and I wanted to do something special. We’d found a nice restaurant, and as this restaurant was both nice AND located in the grounds of one of the swankiest hotels on the island, I figured it was one of the few places here where I’d be able to wear this dress and look only moderately overdressed in it, as opposed to OMGOVERDRESSED. So, off we went.
We reached the hotel and walked for what seemed like miles through it to reach the restaurant.
It was closed.
Oh.
Well, no problem, we thought: we’d simply go to our second choice restaurant instead, which was ALSO located within a giant hotel. We got there, we walked for more miles through the hotel, then we got a little lost, and had to walk even further, which was frustrating because by this point we were both absolutely starving. Finally, we reached the restaurant.
It was also closed.
There was only one thing for it. The sister hotel to the one we’re in has what looks like a lovely restaurant, looking out over the sea. We would go there and we would celebrate T-Day in style, we thought.
Except we didn’t. And I expect you can guess why.
Yup, that restaurant was ALSO CLOSED. Screw you, low season!
We ended up eating in a little Chinese next to the hotel, with a view of a parking lot and a taxi rank. And I went back to the room first and changed into my jeans, because sometimes even I discover a limit to my overdressedness, and this was it.
Still, despite everything, we had a really nice meal, overlooking that car park, in our scruffy jeans, and I don’t think we’d have had a much better time in one of those oh-so-swanky restaurants by the sea. Sometimes simple really is best.
I still need an excuse to break the curse of the white dress, though. I suspect the curse will only be broken when the dress actually gets to fulfil its destiny and be worn for something other than trailing around hotels for hours…
(Dress and shoes: both eBay)
This is one of my favourite dresses, so I’m afraid I may have taken quite a few photos of it…
I’m also afraid to say I’m just going to post them all, because, well, it’s easier than writing actual words that’ll just be lost forever when the internet conks out again…
Can you tell I’m not exactly loving the internet in this hotel right now?
Don’t worry, though: it’s the ONLY thing I’m not loving right now. In fact, it’s so hot today I think I might even make it into the pool…
Or, you know, maybe not.
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