Primarkable

I discovered by chance today that Primark are now selling woman's clothing up to a size 20. This takes me just inside their orbit and naturally I wanted to celebrate by purchasing something.

So I discovered-shopping in Primark is really hard. There is so much stuff and it's all budged together with none of the carefully edited lines that you might find in Jigsaw; and it is all so cheap: nothing I saw today after my first serious Primark browse was over £20, so it makes it difficult to choose what to go for. Also from a practical point of view the ladies size 20 was brand new in this week and not available in many stock lines as yet so I had to hunt for something wearable. In the end I went for the nautical look in this cotton/polyamide blend sweater, mine today for £8.

It's not bad, is it? Gold buttons on the shoulders and turn backs on the sleeves and,whilst the fabric is fine its not spit-through fine and the handling feel is not noticeably worse than other high street knitwear. 

Now that's I'm a fully fledged Primark shopper I can join the clamour of customers asking them to carefully monitor their ethical trading policies and support the redoubtable Mary Portas in her campaign to improve customer service in the "fast fashion" end of the retail sector. Although I have to say that "Gail" who served me today in the Glasgow, Argyle Street branch was most friendly. 

But perhaps the most relevant campaign should be for Primark to expand its size range way higher that 20. The blogosphere is way full of women looking for fashionable clothes in sizes above a UK 16 ( just look to your left for some links) and this is a market which a profit hungry seller like Primark should be going all guns to entice. So please support your local fast-turnover, multiple retailer and show them that selling in larger sizes makes good business sense.

Thinking about wearing less

Its January. I've been wearing boots  and opaque tights for about 90 straight days now and I'm getting sick of the sight and smell of them. And who wants to shop at this time of year when there's only the fag ends of the sale in the shops and everything is getting dearer?

So its fantasy shopping only this month. But I've been inspired enough to put finger to mousepad and report on some things coming up that will have a place in my wardrobe in the spring.

H&M have been the retailer with the most interesting wares to offer thus far. Two recent press releases from them have perked me up a bit. The first thing I'm excited about is their Inclusive range which will be sold online only from early March. The range is available in a much wider range than their normal sizes 32-54 (or 6-28 in UK sizing) and is a wee bit Mad Men-ish with feminine party dresses and floaty skirts. This outfit in particular is lovely and exactly what I would want to buy for wearing in Mar-Apr time

H&M have made things very easy for me this spring by also offering a collaboration with Swedish eco-friendly, clog makers HasBeens which will be available from 20th April in 150 stores. All the shoes in the range previewed on the website are gorgeous, easy to wear and still foot flattering but this style below would be the very dab to wear with my Inclusive cardi and skirt 

Actually just typing that bit above about the range only being available in 150 stores has gotten me a bit worried, am I going to have to have to join a mad Lanvin-style queue in order to get these lovelies? How exciting!

Now I'm happy anticipating my H&M purchases I really am. However if I suddenly had access to a bigger bank account I might be thinking instead about picking up a couple of pieces from this Spring's marvellous Dior Couture collection. This is one of the loveliest and most wearable shows I've seen in a long time and is fantasy fashion at its best. Clothes that cover and swathe around the body but that still make sense in the real world and the colours are just sublime.  There are more images at http://tomandlorenzo2.blogspot.com/2011/01/christian-dior-haute-couture-spring.html which I definitely commend to you