It's not over 'til it's over.....

Hi guys,
Usually by now all of the sales are just about done and dusted. But this year, maybe because of the warmer than average weather and maybe because half of the country is flat broke, there are still a ton of bargains to be had. Some stores are advertising up to 70% off, and almost every high street store is offering further reductions. If you aren't in the flat broke half of the nation then hit the shops, because you're in for a treat! Here are my picks:

Metallic detail dress, Topshop, £40 (was £150)
Beige coat, Miss Selfridges, £30 (was £69)
Brogue ankle boots, Feaith @ Debenhams, £32.50 (was £65)
French connection bag, £64 (was £160)
Vintage apple ring, Accessorize, £1.80 (was £6)
Lanvin purse @ Harvey Nichols, £68 (was £170)
Marc by Marc mouse pumps @ Selfridges £149 (was £215)

Miss Selfridges has an amazing sale. I picked up this gorgeous leather (actually pleather) sleeved coat for just £30, and it's still available on their website. It looks so much better on than it does off - in a soft lightweight fabric and an amazing fit. I'll be showing it off soon!

As well as having up to 75% off all of their sale, all of French Connection's sale coats are now £89 or less. My tip would be to look for a classic style in a colour you love, so that you can buy and wear it now, but still wear and love it again next winter too: that way, you're actually saving money!

Have you had any amazing bargains from the January sales? Are their any other shops you'd recommend I check out?

Love Tor xxx

Competition Winner AND Clothing at Tesco Press Day

Hi guys,
Well, first things first: drumroll please, it's time to announce the winner of my faith shoes competition, which I ran for an extra day because of the problems with blogger last week. The winner of those two gorgeous pairs of Faith shoes is........EMMA! I chose Emma because she wants to wear them to her best friends wedding: and you know i'm a sucker for weddings right now. Congratulations!!

Secondly, last week I went to the Clothing at Tesco press day and press show. I was obsessed with almost every coat I saw (its an addiction) and I couldn't believe how good they looked considering they only cost between £40-50. It was a really nice looking collection, especially for the money, and all of next seasons key trends were covered. Here's just a sneaky peak of some of the looks:


Colourwise, it was all very autumnal, and similar to last Autumn/Winter (good news if you aren't planning on doing much shopping this winter!) The seventies trend is still around, but has evolved from hippie to preppy: think bright denim, shirts with collars, and knitted jumpers. And I was glad to see that peach and cinamon were still popular: they're my current obsessions!

Love, Tor xx

Daily wear: Ill advised knits!

Hi guys,
Will I ever dress right for the weather?! I decided to opt for a cardigan instead of a jacket, but chose the wrong one! This one left my arms cold when I was walking to work this morning, but is too thick for the heat of the day, and i'm sat feeling unbearably hot. Oh well, at least it's a nice looking cardigan: fashion first!



The dress is topshop (outlet actually, £20 bogof) the cardigan is very old New Look, the shoes are from Office. The jewellery and bag are all regulars that you've seen plenty of before!

I love these shoes and expected them to be comfortable, given they are such low heels. But despite the fact i've had them for three years, the peep toe cuts my big toes to shreds everytime I wear them, so I can only ever wear them on days where I know I won't be doing a lot of trekking about town!

Finally, sorry for the close up of my moody face (one of these days i'll learn to smile!) but I wanted to share my new hair cut and colour! It's not much different from the old one (i'm a creature of habit!) but I have had some low lights added this time so the colour won't look too harsh as it starts to grow out: my hair grows so quickly in the summer, so this is my only solution! The next time I have my hair coloured will be 6 days before my wedding! Eeek!!

Love,
Tor xxx

PS - DON'T FORGET to enter my awesome Faith competition! There are two amazing pairs of shoes up for grabs!

COMPETITION! Win two pairs of Faith shoes!

Hi guys,
I love a good giveaway, especially when it's of something dear to my heart: shoes! So how excited am I that Faith are offering one of you lucky people the chance to win 2 pairs of their new season shoes? The answer is very excited! Here is the prize on offer:

With these two amazing pairs of shoes, you'd have your day to night style sorted, especially if you love leopard print as much as I do. Together the shoes are worth £100! It's the platform peep toes that i'm in love with. If only I could enter myself...

To be in with a chance of winning these two amazing pairs of shoes, just Follow the blog (using the box to your right!) and leave a comment letting me know where you would wear these fabulous shoes! The competition is only open for 1 week, and closes at 12 noon on Friday 13th May. The shoes are available in sizes 3-8: if you're the lucky winner you'll just need to let me know your size!

Want more chances to win Faith shoes? Faith are hunting for their biggest fan, and the winner will receive lots of shoes, a shoe named after them, AND become the official shoe blogger for Debenhams! Definitely another competition worth entering! So what are you waiting for? Enter both competitions now and win yourself some shoes!

Love, Tor xx

Question: Can flat shoes be dressy shoes?

Hi guys,

*Warning - This post contains wedding content. I'm aware i'm becoming obsessed.*

I am a dedicated high heel lover. So much so that even though I sprained my ankle on Monday, and my foot is swollen like a balloon, I will still be squeezing it into heels for a friends wedding on Saturday afternoon. For special occasions and evenings out, I don't feel like i'm ready without a heel on. Which is why I opted for high Dior heels in satin and leather for my own wedding: if you're ever going to have an excuse to buy expensive and impractical shoes then this is it! But the practical side of my brain has been telling me that I won't last 12 hours in stilettos, and I need to invest in some flats for dancing the night away. Which leads to my mission of finding party style flats and my question: can flat shoes be dressy shoes?

Here are the shoes i've been looking at:



Above: Peep toe flats (Faith), Thong sandals (Faith), Gold sandals (Miss KG), Diamante sandals (Dune), gold cystal sandals (Red Herring).

White satin pumps are a) pretty ugly to look at and b) not the kind of shoes I would wear ever again, so I immediately dismissed those. So my next thought was to look at sandals: I wear sandals every day in the summer and would definitely get wear out of them after the event. How do you make a sandal semi- dressy? Make it metallic and throw diamante at it, of course! I love the Dune ones in gold, but worry the high back would irritate in the heat. The crystal Red Herring ones are my second favourite, because I would definitely wear these again on my honeymoon.

What do you think? Can flat shoes be dressy? Can you wear flat sandals on your wedding day? Or do you only feel like your dressed up to go out when you have your highest heels on?

Love, Tor xx

Faith closing down sale...two days to go!

I wrote a little while ago that Faith had gone into consolidation and the time since then has really flown. This morning there is a sign in the window of the Oxford street store saying there are just two days to go until the store closes permenantly. I'm pretty sure this closing date will apply to stores nationwide too.

On Friday the 20% off everything had increased to 30% off everything. There was alos a big sale section with 50% or more off. I suspect that the percentage of discount will increase again in these final two days.

I picked up these cute 100% leather gold sandals for just £18. I've worn them every single day since I got them, and i've never had such a comfortable pair of sandals on my feet. I intend to wear these to death, and even toy with getting another pair for when I inevitably wear these out!

If you need new shoes then I would recommend popping down to your local Faith to check them out before it's too late: they have a great selection of sandals, loads of wedding and formal wear shoes, and even some shoe boots that would be great for saving for Autumn. As someone in the comments of my last post about this said, by supporting the company now and bagging yourself a bargain, you are helping ensure that their staff and other debtors get paid.

Love, Tor x

Dorothy Perkins and Faith: time to bag a bargain

I don't think the mid-season sales this season have been anything to write home about, and the Dorothy Perkins sale seems like a prime example of this: with just four rails of sale clothes in the store (and this is the big Oxford street store) there was more sale jewellery available than there were sale clothes.

I really like the peachy flats (although at £20 the original price was only £25, so it's not a massive discount!) and there were some great earrings on the jewellery racks: I think the best bargains can be found if you're looking for new costume jewellery. In terms of the clothes, knitwear was well represented, and if you like Dorothy Perkins jeans you have the potential to pick up a pair very cheaply! There were also some lovely soft cullote type shorts in various colours and patterns: these were the best buy for wearing for the coming season, and came in at just £12.

On Friday the news was announced that Faith had gone into administration: the latest victim of the recession we're slowly coming out of, this is more bad news for the British high street. However in the short term it can be good news for your wardrobe and especially good news for your feet:

The window grandly declares discounts of 50%, however in reality there are only about 8 designs which have 50% off (their normal seasonal sale) The rest of the stock in the store has 10% off: this is still a decent discount if you were looking to buy new shoes anyway, but if not then my advice is to do what i'm doing: wait and see if the discounts get bigger!

I don't really need any new shoes, so i'm only buying them if they're an absolute bargain, however there are so really gorgeous sandals in store so it's definitely worth checking out if you need new season shoes! You have to do into the store though: because the store has gone into administration the website has been suspended.

Have a great day!

Tor xx