When See All Her Faces was a little girl, her dream was to own a sweetshop. Primarily to eat all the sweets. I realised that wasn't going to be a self-sustaining business, so I then decided I wanted to be a world-famous fashion designer. That didn't look like it was going to quite work out for me, so I set my sights on making the cover of London's ES magazine, for achievements not yet determined- but my self-imposed deadline for this also passed, so I revised my expectation downwards. I decided that I would be happy if I once, ever made it onto the Grazia Stylehunter pages- singled out for an impeccable outfit choice, thereby entitling me to feel that my fashion choices had the respect and acceptance of my fashion savvy peers. (I am only being slightly tongue in cheek I'm afraid)
And lo- and behold, my dream pretty much came true last week!! Well it does still count if it happened to the friend I was sitting next to, right? OK maybe not, but let me tell you about it anyway. Said friend was rocking a gorgeous £20 dress from the new Barbara Hulanicki range at George, similar to this:
N.B. You may have read about this new range (you can buy it online here ) earlier in the year. Barbara Hulanicki is better known as the founder of the iconic Biba brand of the 60s and early 70s that influenced fashion globally, and House of Fraser recently re-launched an exclusive Biba range, at fairly aspirational price points (you can find that here ) before Barbara promptly stuck two fingers up at the department store and launched her own range at Asda. At the time she told Drapers “I always find everyone who buys it [the Biba trademark] thinks of it as couture, but I think it is more like Woolworths – which is what it was always meant to be..[The House of Fraser collection] is too expensive... The prices [at Asda] are just amazing. “These [the George at Asda prices] are silly billy prices, which is what Biba is supposed to be. You go shopping, you buy your carrots, then you buy a dress.”
Anyway, back to the story. Towards the end of a long evening out in central London, just as we were about to admit defeat, my friend was approached by a proper trendy wendy. It transpired that the woman was a writer at Grazia magazine, and she spoke at considerable length about how amazing my friend's dress looked, and the general awesome-ness of her outfit. In fact she told me friend that she could easily get away with claiming it cost hundreds of £££s. Which I'm sure is true-but anyone can get a nice dress for £800. You need a real eye to find a fantastic dress for £20, so I think there is much more kudos in that.
And there you have it. Outfit approval from style bible Grazia. Merry Christmas Jacqui you lucky thing.
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