A Personal Note – A Writer, A Rant and A Serious Coat

 

Ok, so there has been no evidence of a sexy short story remnant of Sicily and Valentines day and I haven’t followed up on the article I mentioned in my last personal note – they will manifest in my writing in a different medium and if this doesn’t work then I guess these mediums will soon be made blog friendly for you to read. Nevertheless my trip to Sicily was inspiring, I met a Catanese Sicilian writer, journalist and culture afficianado – Ottavio Cappellani, who I believe is a male, wiser and more published version of myself!!! Cappellani has three published fictional novels, The Sicilian Tragedee, Who is Lou Sciortino and about to be published Who Framed Lou Sciortino. If you have a fascination with Sicily, The Mafia or appreciate quality literature in its contemporary form then Cappellani is your author. Think Mario Puzo meets Ernest Hemmingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald – with a lean towards magical realism. I feel a book review coming on – however, this is just a quick ‘HELLO.’ I have now come to the end of my All Shapes, All Sizes, For Always section and think it’s time to get really HIGH fashion. The sun is shining, for how long I’m not so sure, but it’s here and is a great stimulus for spring/ summer shopping – if you haven’t already started. I haven’t, but I have been preparing pieces that I already own that will soon be adorned while I build up the new season’s collection. How can anyone love fashion, read, write and research fashion and then save? Does it happen, does it exist, can it be done? I don’t think so. And I’ve noticed, although we are in a recession and a/w 09/10 claims to help us by putting many classic cuts and key pieces on the catwalk in blacks, black and only black and then some more black (which is fine by me as I love it!) how come the price of shoes seem to be rocketing?? And I’m not even talking about Gucci shoes, which at one point the cheapest heeled shoe could be as cheap as £250 and now you can barely get a three inch heel for less than £300! I’m talking about high street stores like Aldo, once a reasonably priced shoe shop now has the cheek to price their shoes at almost the same prices as a Kurt Geiger or Carvella shoe! And then there’s River Island – which to be fair does have some extremely nice shoes, however they are a clothes retailer not a shoe shop – how dare they price their shoes at a higher price than a Topshop shoe?? Yes, I know that Topshop is primarily a clothes shop, however Topshop is a fashion forward, high fashion focused and dedicated high street indicator of the catwalk and veteran to the high street. Topshop is the only shop that seems to remain true to its shoe, beautiful shoes at high street prices, looking almost high fashion – their prices haven’t budged much in the past five years. Aldo shoes used to rank in the same kind of price range as Topshop, shoes generally for £60, now Aldo is up there in the eighties and nineties, almost right up there with Karen Millen (another shop that has remained pretty true to its pricing). As you can tell I feel pretty passionate about this subject so I’ll stop right here! I’m just saying that with the recession and rising prices how are high street shoppers and averaged waged people supposed to stay fashionable?? Another question, does Shelley’s still exist? Now there’s a real shoe shop, with real high street prices! Look out for my Shoe Fetish blogs…
Moving swiftly on, now that a/w 09/10 has been catwalked and archived we can begin our search for the perfect winter coat and although I am not trying to wish our summer away, if you should be thinking about a serious coat, shaped, sculpted, ruffled and embellished – as they all don in Taormina (North East Sicily) and don’t have a couple of grand saved in the bank to purchase one then you should be thinking about your coat NOW. My up and coming Killer Coat blogs should help you.
Finally, the fun part, if you have decided your colour pallet, cuts and shapes that work with your body shape, trends that work well with your lifestyle and a price range that suits your bank balance – then I leave you with one instruction – START COLLECTING YOUR SPRING/SUMMER 09 WARDROBE NOW – Happy Shopping!!! X x x x