picture from www.catwalkqueen.tv

I always look forward to graduate fashion week as it is a great time for seeing what will be happening in the fashion of the future. The shows put on by the graduates of the UK fashion courses are usually incredibly innovative and creative. The designers are trying to show off their talents and skills to the public and industry in the hope of securing themselves a job with a top label or designer or lots of publicity for their own label. It is a great way to spot tommorrows up and coming designers and get a taste of things to come.

Some of the designs that really caught my eye were the amzing brightly coloured and cheerful knits of Hannah Taylor, graduate of Ravensbourne, Charlotte Simpson, graduate of Northumberland who won the textiles award for her three dimensional colour, patterns and handwork and Sarah Burton, Manchester graduate for her tasselled pieces.

If you love colourful and bright knit wear as seen at graduate fashion week, you will love this orange and purple knit cardigan.

Most of my favourite clothes are summer dresses. They are perfect for long hot summer days and look great for both casual wear, with flats and more dressy occasions, with heels. The only problem with the summer dress is that, in Britain, long hot summery days can be a bit limited and sometimes, I do not manage to get as much wear out of my summer dresses as I would like. The key to getting maximum wear from a summer dress is by finding a cool cover up. This will extend the times when you can wear a summer dress to include summer evenings, spring and early summer and also late summer.

This white ruffle front shrug cardigan is ideal for wearing with summer dresses. White goes with almost anything in the summer and looks fresh and cool. The cropped style will not interfere with the line of the skirt and the tie has a flattering effect.

There is one style of top that is guaranteed to make a waist look smaller - the wrap top. I love the way the diagonal line of a wrap top cleverly draws the eye across to what appears to be a small waist. A great item of clothing to wear on one of those days that you feel like you would like to be a little slimmer. The wrap top looks equally good with a pencil skirt, trousers or jeans for weekend or work wear. Although spring is here, there are often still days when it is too cold for a short sleeved top. The wrap top is the perfect stylish option. For a really luxurious treat, a wrap top with cashmere will keep you warm and comfy.

This Wrap Over Top has 15% cashmere and is a great neutral colour. The 3/4 length sleeves also have a very slimming effect.

I love this baby blue ballet wrap top. It is made of silk cashmere for those days when you just need a bit of luxury.

Do you ever get fed up with the sight of your tummy bulging out from under  a tight fitting top. You  are certainly not alone, there are so many women that are not happy with parts of their body and a bulging tummy is one of the most common complaints. Ideally hours of sit ups may help but in reality most of us don’t have the time or just never get around to it.

The twin set or non surgical tummy tuck is one of the best ways to make the most of your figure and disguise your tummy. I love the old fashioned elegance of a twin set worn with a pencil skirt but there are also some great new style twin sets which will do the job equally well. The magic of the twin set is both in its double layers which skim rather than cling creating a streamlined silhouette and the vertical line created by the opening of the cardigan that cuts the width of your body into pieces making it apear narrower. The jumper and cardigan of a twin set should be the same colour for maximum flattering effect. Here are some of my favourites:

For a really up to date version of the twinset, I love this set from Dolce & Gabbana.

This black twinset from Jucca knitwear is a really flattering colour and has a lovely scarf tie collar.

This round necked cardigan forms part of a classic   2 piece twinset. Grea for keeping warm without adding any bulk.

 picture from www.cooperative-designs.com.

The catwalk shows for autumn winter 09 have shown an explosion of talent in the knitwear arena especially in London. This great news for those who really feel the cold in the British winter and like keep keep warm and look stylish at the same time. In the past I have always considered knitwear to be something quite functional and certainly not something which makes a real fashion statement. But that is no longer the case. Julien Mcdonald was one of the first to become famous  for his cutting edge knitwear that was caught the attention of Karl Lagerfeld. More recently Simone Shailes chunky and textured knits made big news in 2008. There have been more exciting wool creations from Lousie Goldin, Mark Fast, Co operative designs and Craig Lawrence.

This year Rebecca Cello also created some very lovely embellished knits. She has already started to get her own following from the likes of Alisha Dixon who has worn a knitted biker jacket for a photo shoot with the Daily Mail Weekend magazine. The siblings design trio also featured some very creative knitwear having worked on knitwear for catwalk collections of Johnathan Saunders, Alexander McQueen and Giles in the past.

If you love innovative and different knitwear, you will love this Save the Queen Sleeveless Jumper.

Every time I post about Spring Summer 09 collections, I shiver a bit. I know I should be looking forward to the season ahead and what trends and fashions it will bring but at the moment all I want to do is find a lovely warm jumper to snuggle up in. I love winter, but keeping warm is all I can really think about when the weather turns cold. For me a lovely soft jumper is the clothing equivalent of a lovely warming comfort food like shepherds pie or roast beef.

It is a good thing that chunky knits are in this year as there is plenty of choice from jumpers to cardigans. But my absolute favourite knitwear for all weathers is a cashmere jumper. Cashmere is just about the softest knitwear there is and magically when it is cold keeps you warm and when it is hot it keeps you cool. Great for those times when you come in from the freezing cold and the central heating is just too much.

This long belted cashmere cardigan is perfect for wrapping yourself up in. It is great for keeping warm for around the house but also looks amazingly stylish for going out. It is made from the finest amazingly warm and soft cashmere.

Since the whole credit crunch, recession thing started, I have read countless articles extolling the virtues of buying good quality basic clothes over lots of cheap high fashion, through away clothes. For the most part, I absolutely agree but there are times when only a bit of cheap high fashion will suffice.If you do decide to take the quality over quantity stance, which is probably also more environmentally friendly and ethical than the cheap high fashion option, you will need to ensure that you take really good care of your fashion investments, so that you get plenty of wear and your moneys worth out of them. If you really do get fed up with them, you can sell them second hand.I once invested a very gorgeous, soft and warm cashmere jumper which I loved wearing in the winter. I wore it constantly for 3 winters in a row. The forth winter, I got it out of my wardrobe to wear on a particularly cold day and to my horror, found a  moth hole the size of a 50p right in the front of it. I was devastated and couldn’t understand why despite cedar wood balls a moth had managed to nibble it. My advice to you, if you do choose to invest in cashmere is to go completely overboard with the cedar wood.

It is also very important to store you investment properly.  Choose nice hangers to hang items and if folding and storing use acid free tissue paper. Keep your investment spotlessly clean. If it is dry clean only get it regularly cleaned pointing out any stains/ marks to the dry cleaner in advance. If you do need to remove stains, there are some great tips on Fabric Link

I would definitely invest in this lovely boat neck cashmere jumper, but I would look after it better this time.

If

picture from www.simoneshailes.com

If this summer is anything to go by we could well be in for a cold autumn. In fact I think autumn has started already. Yesterday, the hubby even put the heating on because it was so cold. This prompted me to think about what I would be needing in the way of knitwear this autumn/ winter to keep me really toasty warm. When it comes to knitwear for Autumn Winter 08, I just couldn’t post without mentioning Simone Shailes.

Simone shot into the limelight following her Autumn Winter 08 knitwear graduation collection. Simone graduated form Central St Martins College in February 2008 with a distiction for her MA in Fashion (knitwear). Whilst completing her MA she 2007 Chloé Scholarship and more recently the L’Oreal Professionnel Fashion Design award at the London Fashion Week show. Simones knits are huge and chunky with lots of loped pieces of knit. The texture that she has managed to create with the knits are both interesting and stylish.

 Unfortunately, My budget won’t stretch to one of Simone’s lovely cardis but I can afford this lovely warm maxi cardi.