Spring Accessories

Tom went on a research trip to Oxford today, and got home four hours later than usual so I obsessed over my week's outfits a bit and started ironing things. Four hours was, as it turned out, the exact length of time I spent trying to iron the pleats into my cotton trousers, before checking the label and realising they were supposed to be ironed inside out on three spot setting. So tonight I hate clothes and am all into accessories instead.


Surprising bag discovery of the week- Clarks shoe shop! (Pronounced "clerks") You didn't see that coming! They have a horrid little website made of flash, where the buttons don't take you to the things they say they do, and you'll only find the bags if you follow the correct random route through the links. (Stop acting your shoe size, Clarks). Oh the shoes are still dreadful, of course. But the bags! They cost like £12, and tick boxes for retro-floral and practical-chunky. And who else do you know is going to have one? Fuck's sake, this is Clarks! When was the last time you went into a Clarks? And what the hell was I doing in there? I wasn't even supposed to be here today.

Speaking of retro-floral (I was, a while ago), check out the flowers on the picnicware TopShop are now doing. Apparently. Nothing about it on their ghastly website either though. So who knows? Did it really happen? Am I on glue?

Anyone else think wedges are the most ugly trend since the poncho? With the second ugliest name? What happened to ludicriously impractical kitten heels? This time last year I trotted around merrily all season in kitten heeled plastic-flower embroidered flip-flops from Camden market; this year I've been pushed to the point of breakdown by the fashion police, bamboozling me into a world of pedial unsightliness, cackling as I disappear down a dark hole into some terrible heel-hating underworld. Why do you hate me so?

I'm getting very into things woven out of plastic packing strips these days. They've got loads of the stuff in Evolution but I'm damned if I'm googling that. Perhaps literally.

But I had some good news... I actually found some pretty wedges. There's a shop near the Grafton Centre, and you know I really should have bothered to remember the name, ("Mr Shoe"? sounds almost too made up not to be true) which has the biggest range and most original designs of wedge sandals you'll find on the high street. It's on Fitzroy Street, if you care, not strictly the high street. (For people not familiar with Cambridge, Fitzroy street has an Evolution, a market stall that sells fruit, and a Whittards on it, so is practically the Camden Town on Cambridge.) But the wedges! They do wooden based ones stained with coloured stripes that follow the curve of the shoe! They do curvy ones! Plastic ones! Hollow ones! Cork ones! Bling ones with buckles! Even... wedge-trainers. Believe.