So whilst the fashion world has moved on to S/S 2012 and 50's shapes, bright colours and midi length skirts, here in dark winterswept continental europe I still have my mind on 2010's Maxi Skirt trend. I saw enough over this summer at The Vintage Festival and around East London to convince me that there is life in the maxi yet.

Summer's maxi was floaty, pleated and chiffon and in contrast to winters maxi which was heavier and staighter.

Here are a couple of ways that I think it could work in a conservative office environment:

Source: The Guardian                              Source: I am not a supermodel.com

Source: People Magasine                                   Source: Life.com

Obviously: steer clear of red velvet and shiny jackets...

Thoughts welcome!

Returning to work in torrential rain and wind with a bad cold and the terrible news that Lemsip Max is 50kcal?

Seeing the cherry red Modalu Pippa bag on your desk makes eveything better (trust me!).

Modalu Website

It's a beautiful leather well crafted bag for a releatively reasonable £195 (compared to other branded bags) and from a British brand.

It also comes in some other sunny colours including a cute orange (potentially on my summer bag list) and (Excitement) there's a matching laptop bag.

 I promise to stop blogging about red bags. Honest.

Westfield on Boxing Day.

Frightening, but worth it when I found this amazing Jonathan Saunders for Debenhams dress for HALF PRICE.

I saw this dress blogged about a few months ago on Bargainista Fashionista and thought it was definitely a workwear dress.

Go to Debenhams.com & buy it!

Everything I saw in the sale in the Jonathan Saunders at Debenhams collection struck the right balance between fashion and quality tailoring... here is another I loved (Click on Pic to go to Debenhams Site).

The new JS collection proper 

 has lots of pretty soft summer bright colours and wearable damask esq prints.

http://www.jonathan-saunders.com/collections-current.html

I can definitely see the pink shift dress (Number 12) working with a pale grey summer jacket or contrasting with a black one. *sigh* until I am chair-lady of the board I will just have to hope that there is something similar in the next Debenhams line....

Commodities: Handbags

Glad to see LK Bennett's Life is the Occaision campaign back. These are the people who glamourised Geophysics.

There's some good deals  on the Anna bag (If it's ever in stock - maybe find it in store). I have had my eye on the cherry red and the snakeskin for a while.....

Shop the Anna Bag