(The kind of photo any white person would take in Calcutta) 

So the infamous racist Lena Dunham has been to India and made some incredibly callous remarks about us. I am not even remotely surprised. White people over generations have been coming to India for naive and unformed notions of spiritual redemption/ discovery and making equally uninformed remarks about us. What it did though, was put me in mind of something I read last year. 

Last year I read this book called The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, who, on the strength of his earlier novel, Middlesex was one of my favourite authors. But The Marriage Plot changed all that. Not only did it contain an incredibly othering description of mental illness (bipolar, same as me) but one of the protagonists also went to India. Specifically to Calcutta, my city. The description of Calcutta and it’s people and especially the white attitudes to it made me feel sick. And not because it was described as a filthy, diseased armpit of the world -  I am used to a bit of filth, I grew up there during the time the novel is set - but at how it was fetishised. Like these was this frenzied description of dirt and filth and germs, it felt like the author was revelling in making it as alien and disgusting as possible. It sounded only marginally like Calcutta, not because it’s my hometown and a place I love but because the Calcutta Eugenides describes is a fantasy and a phantasm in the his mind. I wanted to cry. Is THIS how white people who see Calcutta for the first time see it? As this disease and poverty ridden wasteland? Like it is a place that humans can’t inhabit? The storyline was about a young University student who runs away to India to “find himself” (quelle surprise) and then ends up running back to the good old States where the people are bright, shining WHITE examples of humanity. It was a plotline set in India, but none of the characters were Indian. The only Indians you got to see are the diseased and dying Indians in the home for the sick the protagonist volunteers in. They are utterly dehumanised, treated no better than diseased animals by the author.

Reading it, I remembered something I had come across on the internet the year before. I think I was looking for something on Calcutta to show my (white) boyfriend and came across this one site. Some white guy who was with the American consulate had lived in Calcutta for a while in the early 90s and written a host of (really bad, execrable) poems about it. And I read them and I thought, is this all Calcutta is supposed to be? Is our only function to act as creative (and spiritual) inspiration to white people, so they can write really bad poems (and really bad novels) about how we are the Other? Why don’t we have a voice of our own? Why, growing up, was I given books written for little English boys and girls to read and not books about my own culture, my own country/city? Colonization is not just about taking away wealth and agency, it is about erasing voices, erasing histories. There is no voice in the larger literary sphere that speaks about India in a non fetishised, othering tone, all the voices that do are drowned out by white voices because the world is largely West-centric. I wish there was an alternate voice, one that would describe my country and my city with rationality, with love. But voices like that are drowned out. 

To conclude, India does not need your naive unformed ideas/ideals projected onto it. We are perfectly capable of conducting our lives on our own. We don’t need your  ”compassion”, we don’t need your pity and we certainly don’t need you to fix our lives. We have been living happy, fulfilling lives in our own country since time immemorial, strange as it may sound to your white ears. We don’t need to be  ”brought up” to your standards, we have our own, thankyouverymuch. Now, get the FUCK out of our country; we turned you out once in 1947, don’t make us do it again.

Yesterday I was prompted to combat my agoraphobia and go to Uni because I really needed to do library work. On the bus I saw a terribly saddening sight. There was a woman, a lot fatter than me with bright Manic Panic red hair and full makeup. She was also dressed in a black hoodie, black baggy trousers and black boxy shoes. I looked at her and felt really really sad. Here was a woman who clearly wanted to be noticed because she had that hair which stood out so much. At the same time she was wearing those clothes because she felt it necessary to hide her body. I know it is a pretty big assumption to make and maybe she normally dresses in pretty clothes and was having an off day. I have days like that. I have a lot of days like that in which I go out in my rotation of three daily dresses and my walking shoes. But the thing that struck me was that I saw myself in her. I used to be that person. This was me 5 years ago, in my second OOTD for the Fatshionista LJ comm.

Check out the black ‘figure flattering’ dress, ‘skimming my curves’ as it did and ‘concealing my problem areas’. I used to wear a lot of black. This was actually a new dress for me, at a point when I was making an effort to dress. Here is the thing. I had always wanted pretty clothes. But growing up I had no pretty clothes. My mother was convinced that I needed to have a non female gender identity (or maybe she wasn’t even thinking so far; maybe she was just being twisted as she was wont to be) and so I was dressed in boys clothes and my hair was cut short. In my head I wanted to have long hair and wear pretty princess dresses. But all I got were either the plainest of cotton dresses or boys clothes. To this day I have a messed up gender identity, for which I overcompensate by being as femme as I can be.  But that is beside the point. I want to talk about being fat today and how that affected my dressing.

It may come as a shocker but I bought my first dress beyond that age of 10 at the age of 18. The first time I wore a skirt after childhood was then as well. After the age of 10 I grew too big to fit into children’s AND women’s clothing. I would hardly have been a size 12 then. Indian women are very tiny, yes. From the ages of 10 to 15 I dressed strictly in boys clothes, all the while craving pretty dresses and skirts. The only time I wore a skirt was at school and I hemmed the shit out of them to make them look as attractive as you could make a navy sack look. But never above my knees. Never that. My thighs were pits of horror as far as I was concerned. By the time I was 16 I was bulimic and I lost enough weight to be able to fit into women’s clothing again. I bought my first women’s jeans that year. I still remember that pair, they were a mid blue wash, flared (early 2000s, ha!) with floral embroidery around the pockets. I bought girl’s shoes too, giant platforms modelled after the Spice Girls.  By the time I was  17/18 I was severely anorexic and came down to a size 10. In my head I was still the hugest creature to walk the earth though. But that was the first time I bought a skirt. And later on, a dress. It was a denim shift from a frumptastic store called Orvis that seems to specialise in outdoor gear. But I still loved it and wore it as much as I could. By the time I was 19 I had come out of the anorexia and I was bulimic again. I started gaining weight. I stopped shopping online and packed away all my pretty size 10/8 clothes that I no longer fit. I spent my second and third semester of Uni in one tattered black kurti and flip flops. I stopped cutting my hair and removing my body hair, the latter not because I didn’t want to participate in what I now consider patriarchal bullshit, but because I had given up. I was convinced that I was ugly and nothing could be done about it. In my fourth semester of uni, in early 2007, I discovered the LJ community Fatshionista. My first babysteps into the world of fat acceptance. A couple of months later I because diagnosed with PCOS and was told to go on a diet. I dutifully did, went from a size 14 to a size 12/10 and started buying pretty clothes again. I cut my hair and bought some dresses from ASOS and felt great. And then I stopped with the diet, gained weight and this time I was determined to not feel bad. So I started filling my life with as much FA as I could and started fixing my head, not my body. This is the time around which that photo was taken. Fatshionista (later, Two Whole Cakes), Shapely Prose and The Rotund were my daily reading. Every night I would get stoned, get on my iphone and read those blogs and several others. And I was posting regularly on the Fats LJ comm. Of course, it wasn’t the all accepting place I had thought it to be and later on I discovered that people were making fun of my Third World status in a sister comm., but I got over that and eventually started blogging.

It has been a really long journey, and seeing that woman on the bus yesterday really reminded me of how far I have come. Which is why it makes me so sad to see other women who are stuck in that pit of self hatred and destroy their health and their bodies trying to be thin. I don’t know what the solution to that is. I feel like I want to help but I have no idea how to. Should I have approached her, the woman on the bus? Should I have told her “you are beautiful as you are”? Maybe, but I am also terrified of strangers. I remember the first time I was called beautiful by a guy and what that did for me. But maybe I am too invested in beauty. Beauty is not something a woman owes anyone, least of all men. Beauty shouldn’t be a goal in life, there are other things like goodness and kindness which should be. But I have spent too much, way too much of my life being ugly. I will be going back to India in a month, for good, and I am terrified. Indian women simply do not come in my size. In India I am a sideshow attraction. But maybe I will weather that too. Many FA advocates seem to think that placing an excessive importance on beauty is counterproductive and harmful and plays into those patriarchal ideals we should be seeking to rid ourselves of. And I agree. But I have also seldom been included in that conversation about beauty. I have spent a very long time looking at women who are considered beautiful and wondering why I wasn’t like them. In the last few years I have miraculously and suddenly been included in that conversation, although it has been in places that are not the country of my birth. And when I go back I will be excluded from that conversation again, unless it’s on the internet. The long term solution would possibly be to extricate myself from those ideals of beauty and reject them. But it’s like being let into the secret ‘cool girls’ club. I admire people who have been truly able to reject wanting it but I might never be able to be that person.

Today I saw that I had been followed on Twitter by someone running a so called ‘body positive’ styling service but when I looked at their site, it was the same old ‘figure flattering’ bullshit that is being fed to fat women all over. These days it seems it is just repackaged under the guise of ‘acceptance’ which is the shittiest thing I have ever seen. They are co opting our own language against us. The same old body hating, woman hating garbage is now repackaged attractively as ‘self acceptance’ and ‘self confidence’. I am just so angry. I blocked them immediately. But what about the women who don’t know about FA, actual fat/self acceptance that is, and believe in this bullshit? I just keep thinking, so many of us, who just hate themselves and what they look like, and now even the things that could actually help them are appropriated by the body hating brigade. I hate nothing more than ‘body acceptance lite’, which is just another phrase for body hatred. I don’t know what the solution is. Does anyone have any ideas?  

On Saturday I packed my worldly possessions in a little squirrel suitcase, escaped my unheated garret and ran away to London to become famous. 

Actually, no, that’s a lie. My garret has pretty good heating these days and I mostly spent all my time in London staying in bed and watching Food Network. Ace! These photos were taken by my friend Onyi in her garden. Love you, bb! 

Dress: Vintage via The Tailor’s Stories// Coat: Vintage Rothschild via eBay// Tights: We Love Colors// Shoes: M&S via eBay// Hat: Alice Hannah// Brooch: Stolen Thunder// Mittens: H&M// Suitcase: River Island 

Loved this little creature! 

Here are the outfit photos that Mary took of me at the Plantation Gardens in Norwich!  Being a Victorian garden tucked away in a hidden corner of town, the whole place really reminded me of ‘The Secret Garden’. It was a bit eerie, just the two of us in this place that felt untouched by time apart from the green netting over the pond (no photos because it was hella ugly!) I wish I’d had my wide angle lens with me because it’s hard to capture the full range of a place like that with just a portrait lens. Hopefully these photos should give you some idea! Sorry for the immense number, I just wanted a photo against every backdrop I loved! 

A couple more things - I rarely talk about makeup, since I have no skill at it, but I just wanted to say, this MAC Diva lipstick is awesome! I have also recently discovered blusher, and now I am committed to dusting my cheeks with it so I look ridiculous. I love it! 

Jumper: ASOS (similar) // Shorts: ASOS// Coat: Some wholesale clothing site based in China// Brooch: Vintage// Collar: ASOS// Hat: Vintage from The Antiques Centre in York// Tights: Levante via Tightsplease// Shoes: M&S via ebay (similar)// Bag: Accessorize (similar)

Oh! Completely forgot. I meant to announce the winner of my giveaway! So… the winner is: Ellen Duister! Please get in touch with me via email, so I can send you the headband. 

Day before yesterday I went to Norwich to visit Mary. We had a great time - we took photos, went vintage shopping and ate some lovely food. It was overall, a lovely day. Mary took me to the Plantation Gardens, which is a Victorian Garden in Norwich. It’s one of the prettiest locations I have ever shot an outfit post in. I am sure the place is enchanting in the summer, but even now it was sort of magical. It was just so lovely, there were just the two of us in this place that was a throwback to the past. After we were done taking pictures of each other, I took some pictures of the plants and flowers. Here they are now, and with a little teaser of my next outfit post! 

A banana tree! 

I noticed the other day that I had, in my incredibly sluggish manner, hit 50 posts on this blog, and what better way to celebrate it than with a giveaway? I am giving away this gorgeous Pearl and Ivy sequin headband to a lucky reader! This is not sponsored by anyone, I just thought it would be nice to give someone a pretty thing from my wardrobe I never used. So what do you have to do in order to win this? Well, just follow the instructions on the widget below!  

Enter the giveaway

On Sunday I met the most amazing Mary of So Outrageous who had come to York for the weekend. Well, we met on Saturday as well, for drinks but it was on Sunday that we took these photos. May I just say how refreshing it was to meet a lovely, intelligent, awesome woman I could really talk to, after the string of underwhelming guys I have been meeting here since I came back! I had really really missed female company. We talked about a lot of stuff and we bitched about a lot of stuff. It was brilliant.

One of the things she got me to think about was our aesthetic. We share a very similar aesthetic, as you can see. It’s super femme, lolita-inspired in many ways and girly to the point of being childlike at places. In fact, it is very childlike. I haven’t seen anyone apart from her and Georgina who has adopted this aesthetic. One of my main gripes with plus size fashion is the emphasis on sexiness. I can sort of understand why this happens - after all most fat women go through a lifetime of being told that they can’t be sexy. But is this the only option? I see so many fat fashion bloggers who have adopted the ‘sexy’ aesthetic - lots of bling, high heels, bodycon, short hemlines and low necklines. Very trend oriented too. I will probably make a ton of enemies by saying this but I feel that it all gets a bit same-y after a point. Apart from the two people I have already mentioned, I find it hard to draw inspiration from my fellow fat bloggers because my style is just so different from theirs. In this, I find a lot of straight size bloggers to be far more inspiring, and it’s always such a bummer when I find them wearing clothes I want to wear but can’t because they just don’t come in my size. I would always prioritize ‘cute’ over ‘sexy’. I wonder why this is. In my case, part of it might come from how I engage with my sexuality. 

I think I can pinpoint the time my style changed from ‘sexy’ to ‘cute’. It was with this outfit for my former blog (man I used to look so different then!). Delving into very personal matters, I was obsessed with S&M at the time, especially the Daddy/little girl dynamic. I liked how that made me feel. And I wanted to feel like that in every sphere of my life. And so I dressed in ways that made me feel little, without going into full blown loli territory. With time, the S&M part of it changed, but the way of dressing remained there. I found that the way I wanted to dress started getting more and more influenced by the books I had read as a child. 

I grew up reading books written for little English boys and girls from a time when the world order was still very much colonial. That majorly influenced who I became and it wasn’t until I went to university and studied postcolonialism that I had the tools to analyse and unpack what was going on. In many ways I am the typical postcolonial subject. Lots of anxiety, and a lot of trauma, dosed liberally with a big helping of guilt. It’s the reason I study it as an academic now, because I engage with it on a very personal level.

That aside, though, I grew up wanting to dress like the pictures I saw in those books. I even did an inspiration post last year when I found an old copy of Ballet Shoes while doing a module on Children’s Literature. However as a child, due to some very personal stuff, I was kept dressed as a  boy. A late 80s/early 90s boy. But the way I really wanted to dress was like a little girl from the 40s. Lots of cute dresses, peter pan collars sticking out of jumpers, sailor dresses, plimsolls and t-strap flats. It was a desire that remained unfulfilled for a long time. But sometime in 2010, I realised that I had the means to fulfil that desire. And so slowly I began to gravitate towards that. I spent my childhood drawing pictures of blond haired, blue eyed children in the clothes I wanted to wear. Now that in itself is worthy of some major analysis, but now I could be the black haired, black eyed, much older girl in those very same clothes.

Now, I realise the dangers of favouring an aesthetic that has youth at its core. It makes ageing a scary process and gives rise to a lot of ageism. I have been consciously trying to avoid that. I was really really tempted to Photoshop out the laugh lines around my mouth and nose and my dark eyebags that show up in poor light in this post. In fact I edited this batch of photos four times before I finally decided to be honest. I hate it, I hate how I am showing my age. I hate how my makeup process needs to be more elaborate with every passing day to pass me off as youthful. There’s that pitfall of trying to cling on to that youthfulness with everything you have and dreading ageing. I’m trying to strike a balance though. I’m trying to be honest with myself while being true to my aesthetic. It’s a difficult line to tread. I wonder how I will feel 10, even 5 years down the line. Will I have to remake myself dramatically? Or will I become even more of a curiosity? 

So there you go. That’s why my aesthetic is ‘cute’ rather than ‘sexy’. It’s the reason I am so into vintage. I know it is true that if you are beyond a certain size, vintage clothing is really hard to get hold of and this is something that stops a lot of fat women from wearing vintage. I myself have to do a lot of hunting through Etsy and eBay to find pieces I want to wear, and I am kind of on the smaller side of fat. Even then it usually is an agonizing process. Plus size stores don’t make this easy either. So much of what they have to offer is ‘sexy’ instead of ‘cute’. Straight size fashion does not have to rely on ‘sexy’, so why should fat fashion? If there are straight size brands like Dahlia and Dear Creatures and TBA, where are their plus size counterparts? Answer : there are none. Fat women are given one and only one script to follow. I believe that even if any fatty wants to explore ‘cute’ instead of ‘sexy’, the fashion world makes it very very hard. I have found that there are very few options from exclusively plus size stores that I would personally wear. The Clements Ribeiro collection from Evans is one of them, even though it is wholly out of my budget.

Another plus size store that has been doing some interesting things is Simply Be. I was contacted by them recently, and they asked me if I wanted to do a review. I thought about it and went to the site, expecting to find nothing. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. They had a few things I was very much interested in, including this bird print blouse and this sequin t shirt. Infact I am still dreaming of the sequin t shirt. But what really caught my eye was this bobble heart jumper I had seen on Bethany earlier. Bobbles in the shape of hearts in peach! So cute! I decided that it was totally my style. 

It arrived a couple of days later, packed beautifully with a white ribbon tie. I loved it at first sight. What made me really sad though was that it was too big for me. I got the 16/18 as I wear a 18 but I was just swimming in it. I am just not used to wearing oversized things, but if that’s how you like your jumpers, get the size you normally wear! Otherwise size down. I wanted to send it back and get the 12/14 but it was sold out. More sadface. My original intent was to wear it with my sequin knickershorts but it enveloped the shorts completely. In the end I paired it up with this skirt which has pink roses on it to go with the colour of the jumper. Despite the sizing issues though, I really really love this jumper, and I am not being paid to say that. I would pay for it gladly if I hadn’t got it for free. Simply Be - I am really impressed! 

Jumper: c/o Simply Be// Skirt: ASOS (similar)// Tights: Levante, c/o Tightsplease// Coat: New Look (somewhat similar but more awesome) // Bag: Cambridge Satchel// Hat: 50s vintage hat from Dalena Vintage// Shoes: M&S via eBay

Mary and me. Aren’t we just so adorably retro?! 

Her outfit. I loved the skirt and the collar! 

A photo I took in the fog after I dropped Mary off at the station. 

When I saw this dress on ASOS I termed it ‘The Dream Dress’. Seriously, I have been dreaming of a dress like this for years. Long sleeves (which you can’t see), flared skirt, gold buttons, velvet Peter Pan collar. What’s not to love? I had been thinking of how to style this for a while, and I decided to go for varying shades of blue - teal, navy and royal blue. I was also lucky in that my date who shot these photos is a real photographer, and I was amazed by the difference in quality. He made me look so good! Sorry for going a bit overboard with the number of photos, I just can’t get over how nice I looked! I also left out the Photoshop filters this time out of deference to what I am sure the wishes of my photographer would have been, had be imposed such wishes on me. 

Dress: ASOS// Coat: New Look// Tights: ASOS// Shoes:ASOS// Hat: John Lewis

Autumn berries! 

This is the first time in my life someone has actually taken a photo of me in which I am smiling naturally. I used to think it made me look horrible but I really like these photos! I also love what my hair is doing here, despite the fact that you can see my gray hairs (bloody heredity :/), I think blowdrying with this length really works. 

Sequin slippers!

Gray hair :( It’s funny, I don’t like it very much but I am not inclined to do anything about it either. 

Dead flowers. 

Something I hurriedly put together for a date. Then I strongarmed my date into taking photos for me while I preened in front of the camera. I have no idea what he thought. 

I had been looking for woolly cream tights since last winter, and I had no idea where to look. So when Tightsplease contacted me, asking me if I would do a review, it was a revelation, since I hadn’t known of any resource for plus size tights in the UK. Their plus size tights page, as I saw, had a selection of tights, although most of it is sheer. I had the choice between these Levante tights and the Falke ones, and they sent me these to review. Please note that I have not been paid for this and my opinions are unbiased and entirely mine. So what do I think of these tights? Well, I am sad to note that I am not really happy with them. They arrived within a day, which was nice, but as I opened the package I was assailed by a very strong scent. I don’t know why the tights are meant to be perfumed. What I liked at first sight were the cable pattern at the back and the cotton gusset. I have worn these tights on two separate occasions and these are my impressions: 

I am happy I got these for free because I would have hated spending 15 odd pounds on them. They are the right size (I got the tall) but on the first wear they kept slipping down. After the second wear the fabric around the gusset is thinning and there is a hole on the waistband. These were also really bad at keeping the cold out. I feel sorry to note that I will not be getting anything from Levante this range again. I will probably get the Falke ones instead. </review> 

Dres: Alice Takes a Trip// Coat: Topshop// Tights: Tightsplease// Shoes: M&S via ebay// Hat: Dalena Vintage// Improvised Hatpin: Giant Dwarf

A squirrel! 

These are my new walking shoes that I bought after my toe had started sticking out of my old ones. Red suede from M&S (!!) and <£8 on ebay!

It was hard letting go of summer this year. But it’s finally freezing here in the UK, and I am digging out my woolly coats from storage. Usually I welcome the arrival of Autumn because coats! Winter hats! Boots! But this year I really wanted to enjoy summer more. But now that the cold is finally here and sometimes the smell of leaves being burned hits me from nowhere, reminding me of home, I am finally going to try and accept that Autumn is here to stay. I bought my first winter coat of this year a week or so ago, at Primark. It’s a red military number, which is unusual for me, since I don’t own a single red coat (everything is either navy, or mustard or some shade  of blue). Usually I go through a couple of winter coats each season (by going through, I don’t mean that they get destroyed, just that I get tired of them!) but there are old standbys like my vintage Rothschild coat which I cling to with the covetousness of an old miser. Today was the perfect Autumn day - all crisp and cool with a chilly wind blowing and it reminded me of all the things I associate with the season - fireworks, homesickness and falling in love. Autumn makes me want to lie in the mellowing sun and fall asleep with its rays on my face. It really is the reason of procrastination. I don’t know if anyone noticed it on Twitter, but I bastardized the first couplet of ‘To Autumn’, which is one of my favourite poems, a few days ago:

Season of naps and sleepy wakefulness!

Close bosom friend of procrastination,

Conspiring with it to leave to rest

Half read texts and my dissertation. 

Yes, please feel free to come at me with an axe now. But that is the current story of my life. So as an aid to procrastination, I thought I might show you my top 10 fashion wants this season (and a bonus one!)  

Please do note that I wear a size 18 and this is my personal wishlist. There are a few plus size items here, but not all. Thanks :) 

1. ASOS Curve coat: The moment I saw this coat I wanted to cry because it was in Curve and Curve doesn’t go down to a 18. But then I saw that apparently these days it does! I really hope this doesn’t mean that they are thinking of removing the 18 from their main collection though. Every year I have to have a new mustard coat. In 2010, it was the Ben Sherman peacoat, last year it was my New Look peacoat and I am determined that this year it shall be this one. 

2. Accessorize beret: I sort of fell in love with this beret when I saw it in store but I bought my red hat from Dalena Vintage a week or so ago. Still, this is a very good example of the kind of thing I have been wanting this winter. 

3. NW3 fox belt: Stags and foxes and rabbits - it’s almost Game of Thrones season in fashion this year! The fox motif is really really in right now, but in lieu of finding a fox dress/top/jumper that I like and can fit into, this fox belt from NW3 will do very well indeed. 

4. F&F 60s dress: I don’t know what has happened to me this year but I seem to be deviating from my usual script of flared skirts and going for 60s inspired shifts instead. Of course the best thing would be to find an actual mod shift from the 60s! 

5. Pieces suede gloves: Last two winters I bought red leather gloves as my winter gloves, but this time, the pastel pink really caught my eye! 

6. ASOS rabbit bag: Rabbit motifs, like foxes are incredibly in at the moment, and this bag is burgundy as well - two trends in one ago and it’s something I will love for years to come. 

7. Gold oxfords: This winter (actually since last summer) I refuse to wear anything except metallic shoes. I got silver sandals for the summer, so it must be gold oxfords for the winter. These ones are from ebay. 

8. ASOS mod shift: Yet another mod dress. It;s navy, has a multicoloured peter pan collar and cuffs and buttons to match. What’s not to love?

9. Cat print cardi: I am all about the animal motifs this  season and this cardigan reminds me of a horse print one that I saw at TKMaxx earlier this month but which I couldn’t buy. This is cuter though! 

10. Accessorize cat socks: Again, the cats. Would you believe I’m actually a dog person?! I got pretty similar squirrel socks from Accessorize last month but I want these too! 

11. Bonus item - heart bobble jumper: The image is from Dorothy Perkins but I actually saw this on Simply Be first. But polyvore doesn’t clip images from the site, so I snagged this photo from Dotty P. I had been eyeing this for a while now and a couple of days ago Simply Be were actually kind enough to offer to send this to me to try. There will be outfit photos with it soon, I promise! 

What are YOU coveting this Autumn/winter?