Love love love love love love looooooooove this look! Illustrates perfectly what I was banging on about earlier regarding fashion mixing up formal and casual wear.

I find it hard to get away from blues, greys and blacks in my wardrobe, and I don’t think I actually own anything brown. But I am partial to a bit of Pat Butcher-esque leopard print, like this top. I own very, very many pairs of jeans and they’re the one article I never throw away as I fall in and out of love with them for no discernible reason. For a while, only skinnies felt comfy whereas at the moment I can’t stand them. These are for me the perfect shade of blue, and I can never resist a good bit of distressing. They’re especially versatile now that I can also team them with heels and a nice handbag and go for a non scruffbag look.

Last summer, I got a great kaftan from Lea Lazaric, featured here. Earlier this year I came across another gorgeous one, and it’s been a godsend this summer. Brilliantly light to pack, and so adaptable – I wore it both slouching around on the beach (do you slouch on a beach? sounds more like an urban verb somehow) as well as out – glammed up with statement earrings – for dinner and drinks. The colours work better in the night actually as it’s ever so slightly on the garish side for the day time.

I also wore it at Glastonbury! These are the only photos I have of me there, as I forgot to get any more taken, but one of my other outfits can be seen here. This outfit post also sadly marks the start of my dodgy hair colouring dramas (thanks, Aveda Zagreb)…

The (baseball) cap. Potential for sartorial triumph. Or disaster. And it’s having quite a moment lately. Worn right, the cap can bring a welcome edginess to your look. Worn wrong, it’ll just make you look like someone’s (albeit sporty) geeky American cousin.

Fashion is without a doubt mixing things up more and more these days. Sportswear came into its own in the Spring of this year (or at least on the catwalk… on the streets only the most brave and talented fashionistas managed to pull it off) and formal wear is now often mixed with casual wear to give a groomed, yet laid back impression. Formal wear has, if you like, been cooled up, and casual wear given a kick up the backside. Think distressed jeans worn with stilettos, jogging pants worn with heels, office wear teamed with trainers. The line is definitely getting more and more blurred. If you ask me, it’s a good thing. I’ve never been overly smart but this middle ground is something I think I might just be able to master.

Sometimes you get blindsided. (“What? Xxxxxs are cool now? When did that happen??!”) but this is one of those trends that could easily be seen rising from the street. Turbans, which were worn in varying guises right through from the 20s into the 50s, hit their peak in the summer of 2013 and now, headscarves are having their day. I think people started wearing them to the (so ubiquitous these days) festivals (either to be flamboyant or practical), and realised that they could actually also make the cut for ‘everyday wear’.

I adore the retro feel of headscarves and turbans, especially silky, patterned ones. And the sheer range of looks you can achieve with them. Go arty-bohemian and more casual (think 1940s land girl), go hippy (think Woodstock), go glamour (think Elizabeth Taylor), or go gypsy (hide dodgy hair away inside  and add some big hoops, great for summer) – just do it! You now have loads of ‘how to tie a headscarf’ posts on the internet (although the most fun way is just to experiment) and loads of images for inspiration. Also, at the minimal cost of an offcut of material or a scarf, there’s no excuse not to try this trend!

Photographed at Notting Hill Carnival, August 2014. Of all the (let’s say ‘regularly dressed’) people I saw, I liked her outfit the best. Headscarves and bandanas have definitely surreptitiously slipped into ‘mainstream’ wear now and are not just for festivals. I caught the rising trend a while back: here, here and here. The way she’s wearing hers (as well as the trousers) is very 80s, but the look certainly doesn’t look dated.

For link see here.

Some of Nomad Thief’s pictures (from Glastonbury) featured:

Some of Nomad Thief’s photographs from Notting Hill Carnival featured on www.fashion.hr. For link, see here.

If you don’t like noise and crowds, or if you’re ignorant enough to be racist, Notting Hill Carnival is not for you (the same could be said for the rest of London). If however you’re one for observing humanity spilling onto the street, it is. This year, I decided to ditch Mr Thief (not that he was that bothered, he’s more into house than reggae) and my friends, and go it alone. And I have to say I can recommend it. No worrying about losing anyone, no trying to get to the this and that sound system, no coordinating loo waits, just an aimless, wonderful 5 hour wander through streets filled with crazy, colourful people and the smell of jerk chicken cooking. (And by the way I defy you to say “jerk chicken with rice and peas please” if you have an anywhere near vaguely posh accent to an Afro-Caribbean dinner lady type without sounding like a complete idiot / Sam from Foyle’s War.)

The smart boutiques of Westbourne Grove as well as most of the other shops in the area are boarded up, and every doorway, curb and bollard makes for an impromptu picnic spot or vantage point to watch the world go by. Where else but at Notting Hill Carnival could you pull off not feeling awkward wolfing down goat from a styrofoam container, sitting alone on a random curb stone cold sober in the middle of the day?

Inevitably, I suppose, I started comparing Notting Hill Carnival to all the ‘festivals’ that are so popular these days. Granted, Glastonbury’s been going since 1970, but a lot of the others (Wilderness, Latitude, SGP, Bestival, etc) are relatively new. They seem to be so terribly ‘trendy’. Notting Hill Carnival conversely is a long standing institution amongst locals, a whole cross section of the community, and the fact that that it’s free manifests itself clearly. That’s the nice thing about it. You don’t JUST see people of a certain demographic (i.e. those with a spare few hundred quid to spare and who have spent hours preparing to replicate Cressida Bonas one strapped dungaree shorts outfit). The facepaint, the headwear, the shorts and ankle boots, it’s all there too, but you get the feeling that it’s not the whole point. You see ‘normal people’ (i.e. not necessarily over privileged ones) for whom Carnival is and always has been an annual celebration, an unmissable street party, the culmination of creative efforts and hours of practice and build up – not to mention for some, a good means of income. Carnival belongs very much to the communities who started it up, and that much is clear. It’s a street party where everyone is welcome but the roots of it, the hosts of it and the stars of it, are those locals who (or whose forefathers) came over from  the West Indies / Caribbean / Trinidad & Tobago.

It’s lovely seeing all the generations brought together – literally babes in arms through to nonagenarians partying with each other in the street. It’s also lovely (one of the plus points about London) seeing groups of friends and neighbours of different races who have grown up side by side and in and out of each others homes. Maybe I’m romanticising things but I somehow felt that the real party was going on in hallways and doorsteps of the homes of local residents. I can’t help thinking that with the gentrification of Notting Hill and surrounding area (a 2 bedroom flat here will cost you the best part of a million), that this Notting Hill is going to disappear and be replaced solely by the affluent.

Favourite moments? Watching the whirling dancing of a beautiful lady in red (first photograph not in the main gallery but here), sitting listening to some random drummers with a small chap (we’re talking maybe 3 years old) next to me tooting away enthusiastically on his whistle, wandering into a street where Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ was blasting out and watching everyone doing the dance (yes, it was cheesy – but it also gave me goosebumps) and getting into the throng close up to the speakers in one of the side streets and dancing amongst the smiles. There is something appealing about the music literally reverberating through you – the reggae, the dub, the soca.

In short, although this is a festival to which thousands flock from all over, it manages to retain its local flavour and original cultural identity. To risk a cliché, it’s a celebration of human nature and everything that’s good about the thriving human mass that is London, and it manages to get us – all of us: rich and poor, young and old – back to how humans have always celebrated, with song, dance and dress up, en masse and within their community.