by Simran Kaur

Pure Black
No dark romance or inky-hued, Slavic revival. What if I just wanted to dress up in a deep, pure jet black devoid of pattern and prints. This isn’t to say I’m looking for something sleek and austere but the pretty much the opposite. Staying true to black makes it much easier to dress in a completely over the top, conceptual way without looking like an escapee from a performance art piece. I’m thinking of soot black, something tactile with a clash of volume and texture all mixed up together, perhaps in a Hannah Marshall way. I’ve been enamoured for ages with the way she works with leather and chiffon and would play with adding a rough and chunky knit over delicate dresses, as Christopher Kane did on his AW 08/09 catwalk.

The Pale
 Hopefully it’s fine to wave a clean-palmed goodbye to the bottle of
fake tan, as I give up feeble attempts to darken myself up during the
second half of the year. Instead I take my cue from thoughts of Snow
White, viewed for 2008. In reality terms, this means a box of deep
black hair dye with a sharper cut, perhaps along the lines of our
absent Susie Bubble, and some rosy cheeked blusher fakery, leaving my
legs to be encased in a pair of paper white tights.

The Last Thing
 I’ve never really lived by the Coco Chanel legendary line urging us to
take off the last item we fling on, as any momentary delay in heading
out the door would only result in me adding ‘just a little bit more’.
In fact I feel oddly exposed and anxious in the rare instances I don’t
at least have one pair of earrings on. Maria Francesca Pepe  acts like a bridge between my train of ‘pile ‘em up
high’ thought and Madame Chanel’s quality not quantity tone. She
designs bold, oversized statement jewellery that forms the starting
point for the day’s outfit, instead of my usual jangly afterthoughts,
but I would still find gratifyingly eye-catching enough to use as my
sole piece of adornment.