January Joy - Try a new trend

by Bex

First of all, Happy Birthday to Roz!  I hope you have a lovely day today and don't have to work in the house!  :)

Now, for today's January Joy post I've tried something new but it's not necessarily a trend.  As you may know, I'm not one for following trends.  I know what I like and that's what I wear.  Anyway, since I don't really know much about current trends (although I have noted that the colour of the year is radiant orchid according to Pantone which I'm sure pleases Roz!), instead I will just share some of my recent outfits as it's been a long while since I did a proper outfit post!  :)  It's about time I started wearing maxis again and below are two examples of how to make them work for winter, something I've been asked about before.   If I was to have a signature style, I guess it would be statement necklaces and maxi skirts (although I haven't worn much of the latter in the last few months until very recently) as that's what people tend to associate with me (judging by the tweets I get about skirts and all the lovely gifts I received for Christmas and my birthday - people know what I like!)

One of these outfits was something I wanted to try since buying myself a special dress for my birthday last year.  I always planned to style it differently and have previously tried it on with jumpers over the top to wear it as a maxi skirt but none ever looked right (which Roz can attest too since I emailed her pictures!).  After enlisting the help of my favourite style guru, Kirsty, she convinced me, with the help of Pinterest, that rather than the black jumpers I had been trying, perhaps grey might also work and it just so happens that I found that perfect jumper in grey and have finally worn the dress as I planned.

I wore it to Sarah's house warming party last weekend and loved it :)  I basically wanted to dress down the super sparkly sequin French Connection dress with black boots (Aldo) and a knitted jumper (H&M), cinched in with a thin belt (Dorothy Perkins).

I had to add some pink lipstick as there wasn't enough colour but given the sparkliness, I felt I could cope with pared down colour ;)  I pinned up my hair and left it to dry curly and accessorised with my antique ring from Nik and bracelet from Vonnie.

I still couldn't resist wearing it with my faux fur Warehouse coat as well and it looks fab with my new Stella McCartney bag from Mum & Dad!

Kirsty also convinced me that the grey would work with leopard print and she was so right, here it is paired with my leopard print maxi skirt from Primark too...

I wore this to dinner with Nik with extra eyeliner and my big statement necklace from New Look.  (You'll be hearing more about those earrings soon!)