Kingdom Of Style

The Ceremony Dress

The lovely Brandon from TwentyThirtyForty set me a challenge - to style up a dress from the shop in several different ways.

This was an interesting challenge indeed as the dress I chose was quite basic and actually a bit hard to style because it looked best worn pretty plain. I chose the Moto Dress by Opening Ceremony. I liked the shift silhouette and, of course, the zip up the front. I had to belt it as it's too big for me but it works really well belted anyway so it's all good.

I will be sending all my images to Brandon today and when it goes up on the site I shall be sure to post them here too. In the meantime here is one image. In my most natural state - with PVC!

Queen Michelle

Cropped In

True to form there was no way I wasn't going to find a way to get my little hands on the Stolen Girlfriends Club cropped sheer top from Pixie Market. Very versatile indeed, it gets layered under and over all manner of things.

I haven't worn a properly cropped top since I was about 17, back in the days of a teenage flat stomach and smooth skin, but I feel I can revisit it when I wear it with high waisted vintage leather trousers. It's a little bit Mallory from Natural Born Killers.

Of course with sheer my natural state is to simply add more sheer!

Queen Michelle

Spartans And Lace

The third and final pair of Black Milk leggings I received were the amazing Lace Spartans. Lazily I just wore them with my Obesity & Speed customised tee, Ashish for Topshop wedges, leather suspender belt and DIY feather headpiece.

Black Milk leggings and these wedges just seem like a match made in heaven.

Queen Michelle

Laced With Lace

The second pair of leggings in my Black Milk parcel were the Laces. Pretty self explanatory really, these gorgeous lace creations shall be worn over coloured leggings for normal day to day wear with massive heels.

I teamed them with my vintage fanlacer corset worn backwards, Topshop pinstripe jacket, vintage feather bolero, vintage crochet gloves, Oh!Nena headband and Givenchy wedges.

Queen Michelle

The Queen and The Little Lace Bird...

I have a thing for birds!

But strangely I always forget that I do. It always falls to Empress Gillian to remind me, every time I gravitate towards them in shops. My heart leapt when I found this little white crochet bird. It was crying out to be threaded onto some sequins, teamed with my vintage crochet shawl and taken for a little woodland walk...

Queen Marie

Slippery Slicks

My boy James from Black Milk sent me through a black box of happiness - three pairs of leggings to test run. Due to my ever depleting energy and a face of cold sores I could only muster the strength to try on the Slicks. The Slicks, for those who don't know, are like the Liquids except the panels extend up the whole front. I have been moaning to J endlessly about my Les Chiffoniers PVC leggings and so these are a great alternative and are actually better quality PVC, although even better - if enough girls want them he'll make leggings entirely of PVC, so go and pester him! You know you want them!

I tried to make myself feel better today by working a Majorette vibe.

Vintage band jacket, vintage feathered headpiece, Ashish for Topshop wedges.

The beauty of the Slicks and the Liquids is that the spandex makes the leggings perfectly breathable and perfectly tight, just how I like it.

On Monday I should hopefully feel better and share the other pairs with you.

Queen Michelle

The Perfect Coat

I have received the most glorious coat in all the Kingdom, courtesy of the astonishingly kind Patricia Ayres, designer behind Artlab whom I'm mentioned many times on this site. I don't think I really need remind you of what a wonderful designer Patricia is. It's worth mentioning that Patricia has two Etsy stores now: her Artlab one and her new Patricia Ayres one. These are images from her new shop.

My coat is her Artisanal brown wool army coat, and she could not have sent it at a more perfect time, with the Scottish weather taken a decidedly dramatic cold turn. The wool has been left raw edged and it's cut into a perfect A-line shape with shoulder slit details. Patricia told me I could shorten it if I wanted but I actually really loved the longer length.

The coat is light yet very, very warm and I shall be able to wear a slim fitting leather jacket underneath for extra cold days too. Perfect!

Queen Michelle

Death Comes Ripping

Today is the anniversary of the Queen Mums death 2 years ago. Yup, fireworks night - she went out with a bang!

I decided to honour her in a way she would have appreciated - cheekily. The Queen Mum had a wicked sense of humour and she swore like a sailor! Demure she wasn't. She also loved me in all my heavy metal splendour as a teenager, so it seems a fitting tribute to her to don my newly altered, ie hacked, 'Even Death Can Die' Obesity & Speed t-shirt.

If the Queen Mum had encountered the Grim Reaper that's exactly the sort of thing she would have said to him, "Even death can die, smart arse!".

The t-shirt is super cheesy. I'm not entirely sure it's actually meant to be cheesy but it makes me laugh anyway so I hope O&S mean it to be a playful poke at heavy metal.

Queen Michelle

Belle In A Hat

It's no secret my enjoyment of adorning a lovely hat. I like my hats in all shapes, sizes and levels of functionality. Currently I am rarely seperated from my Ile Aiye wool beanies as they are just the most perfect wool hats imaginable. If you were to see me of an average morning then most likely I'd be in my Snoopy PJs, my beanie on and my hands wrapped around a cup of tea.

Today I caught Bo Bo accosting an envelope the postman had put through the letterbox. Once I'd wrestled it off him, I opened it to find the most wonderful woolly hat courtsey of Je Suis Belle. It perfectly blends both form and function - the sensible wool to keep my head warm and the flirty net bow detail. It is rather 1930's I think!

So now I can finally get my Ile Aiye beanies in the wash!

Queen Michelle

L For Loser!

As Queen Marie mentioned I didn't come away with the award for Most Stylish Female at the Scottish Style Awards, instead an actress called Louise Linton won. I have no idea about celebrities so don't know who she is or the actor who won Most Stylish Male. I wasn't expecting to win since I was the wildcard in there anyway.

However it would have been great fun presenting an award had the technical bods been able to do their job and hand me a mic that was actually on, which they didn't, meaning I was left announcing the winner in near silence. Sadly I wasn't the only one it happened to with several people being left to either announce winners or, worse still, one poor woman accepted an award, in silence. Well done technical guy, you played a blinder there mate! Luckily Sophie Ellis Bextor, who was hosting the night, noticed and gave me her mic to announce the winner once more.

I was presenting the Breakthrough Star award and had no clue who the nominees were until I saw the brochure and realised Keira Thorley, whom I've written about a few times on here, was nominated. I met Keira earlier and she was so amazingly nice to me. When the catwalk show was on, showing several looks from each nominee, in my opinion Keira's designs were head and shoulders above everyone else. She woz robbed! Aside from meeting Keira and a few friends there, I also met some lovely readers who made me feel less like an alien at such an event.

I have to say actually, Sophie was a brilliant host. She had good chat. At one point Beverly Lyons was among the audience and went over to talk to stylist Judy Blame. She asked him "so, how do you like the show so far?", to which he replied, "rubbish!". I was outraged and thought to myself, "fuck off back to London then you twat!" until Prince B told me he thought he was actually referencing an old Morecambe & Wise joke. I think I wasn't the only one the joke was lost on then as he was met with stoney silence. Sophie though came right back at him by saying, "aw I'm sorry you're having such a terrible night Judy. I used to read all your books when I was little. Oh no, wait, that was Judy Blume".

Back to the important thing though; The Dress. Some of you might have guessed it, but the dress I was lucky enough to be given for the awards was a stunning Jean Pierre Braganza dress from SS09. I wanted this dress so badly when I first saw it, so when JP and Jane found it and sent it to me I was utterly delighted.Well that'd be a massive understatement!

The dress itself was just a press sample and was only created for the show and editorials so wasn't machine stitched, just hand tacked, so I actually ended up machine sewing the dress together as I couldn't risk it falling apart. It took many long hours but was worth it. Did I stick out like a sore thumb amongst the sea of glam sequins? Yes I did, but I didn't care. I was wearing my dream dress!

It's panels of holographic PVC and neoprene-like elastic made me feel like something from Fifth Element! I wore it with my Margiela boots and Topshop leggings.

 

So a HUGE thank you to Jean Pierre and Jane - the dress is magical!

Queen Michelle