Day 33 to 37: The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.

The last week I have had little to no excuse for not posting on my blog. In fact, it's been quite an education into my lack of personal discipline. On more than one evening I have looked at my computer and my camera, both clamouring for blog focused attention and have ignored them in preference for a repeat of CSI. However, despite this I have in fact had an interesting week where hangerstrike is concerned. My fashion literature consumption has included all of last weekend's Sunday supplements, as well as Vogue, Grazia, Stylist and a couple of urban outfitters emails. I have also, for the most part shunned jeans, having had a flick through the last month of photos it is clear I am over dependent and needed to diversify.

Monday morning train to London, trusty coat in tow. Not sure Mr St Laurent ever envisaged such classics being aped by H&M and worn along with Primani raspberry shoes, nevertheless....I like the look.

Tuesday saw me whipping out a knitted number usually sported on holiday and teaming it with my fave ponyskin shoes, possibly the look is let down by my rather intense facial expression but nevertheless I love the colour.

Wednesday, jeans day...it appears to be a physical impossibility to entirely avoid jeans but one day in fave isn't too bad.

Rather than feeling distressed at the lack of ability to actually walk into a shop and make a purchase I feel this week's displeasure has been directed at how fashion is changing at alarming pace. This blog is going to be harder than I ever thought. As reported by Grazia the other week, the trouser is to make a comeback, this is a fact backed up with a strong evidence base through all of my glossy magazine consumption this week. I feel frankly panicked about this.

As well as a return to a 90's esque betrousered state, the winds of change appear to be afoot in other areas. The catwalks this season are awash, not with fantasy clothes that could only be worn by the most impractical of ladies, but with functional clothes, sleek lines and an air of minimalism. Gone is layer upon layer of floating chiffon and teadresses adorned with delightfully whimsical flowers, instead they have been replaced by clean line, block, neutral colours and a distinctly minimal take on accessories. To coin a phrase, black is the new black. Now, apart from the trouser problem which has been discussed previously, I have less of a problem with these changes than I may have expected. The coming season will be about wearing less stuff, and before you pass comment I do not mean we all need to dress like pretty woman pre makeover. We will see considerably less focus on layering and more on intelligent dressing. One shift dress for me, trousers for everyone else (tsk), white shirt, classic trench or even camel coat and a non attention seeking scarf.

Now I think my wardrobe can manage, there are key items which I have had for a while which have stood the test of time and still deliver a neat, current and smart look...thank goodness. And here I make my point, whilst of course the likes of Vogue and Grazia must flog us new product, trousers mainly and camel coats as a close second, the undertone is that we should not be buying loads this season. In the inimitable words of Elisa Sednaoui 'It's about having less but loving the things you have more'. The post recession backlash against excessive consumption is apparently filtering through to even the most oppulent of labels and this has been reflected in the muted styles of the couture shows.

Of course this is a delight for me and my challenge, I am in fashion if I don't buy anything new. It's like a gift, except for the perennial trouser problem which is clearly going to plague me through coming drizzly months. I have a dress, a black fine knit from Oasis, I bought it for my first day at work almost three years ago, I remember even now the agonising I went through justifying my relatively low cost purchase, wondering if it would be a good buy and whether the 'price per wear' would live up to expectation. On Thursday I found myself pulling it from the wardrobe for a day chilling with friends (photo forgotten sorry) and thoroughly enjoyed the day I spent in it, drinking tea and shooting the breeze.Three years on I still love the dress. It has held it's colour and it's shape, it is appropriate for work and also manages that tricky day to night malarkey that fashion editors always hark on about at length. It is not too hot in summer and not too cold in winter. In short it is a high street classic, the sort that I have rarely searched for, having been too often distracted by something pretty that won't last in either style or washing machine stakes.

Perhaps this season alongside my challenge will educate me in the virtues of the classic item, of spending less yet getting more. Indeed it may be the making of the stylish rather than fashion hungry me, who knows?

A spot of Friday daytime drinking and posing beside an ornamental shovel in Manchesters lovely Northern Quarter. Shorts and boots the only way to roll when threatened with a mid summer storm. Yikes

Day 31 and 32: 1 month down....BOSH

This weekend started as Mancunian August weekends often do....with a monsoon! But fear not, this did not stop me from hitting the town to tackle my first real blog dilemma. A little while ago I was sent a most lovely invitation to a party, a 30th party nonetheless. Only one month into the year this should have posed no problem for me, however .....this invitation had a little twist. It was masquerade. Now, I am never one to shirk a fancy dress occasion, I love the opportunity to reinvent myself be it as Wonderwoman, Wilma, Cupid or indeed a Poddington Pea.

I grant you that masquerade is slightly more classy than dressing oneself in cushions wrapped in green lycra and drinking wkd blue, but nevertheless fancy dress is fancy dress and a competition is a competition. I therefore found myself plunged into what can only be described as a desperate quandary. I used to have a beautiful mask but at it's first and only outing I had a little too much fun and I fell asleep on it, ruining it's refined beauty and rendering it useless. As such I was left with somewhat of a dilemma, how could I partake in the party theme without a mask.......I had a little brainstorm with myself and I happened upon a plan.

I am not allowed to buy clothes but I am allowed to buy makeup, so what if I were to paint a mask on myself? This seemed an excellent approach and so I set out on Saturday morning with Bambi my trusty shopping comrade beside me to scour the shops for some hardcore glittery fayre. Following a brief interlude in which we actually met the real life Peter Rabbit (shock: see below) we headed off to Boots for some serious beauty retail.

After wandering aimlessly near some Barry M glitter in terrifying hues, Bambi remembered about Urban Decay; bless her organised cotton socks. They have rather upped their game and as if by magic I was met by not only a manned unit but by wonderfully well versed male beautician skilled in extreme makeup looks. He bought wholeheartedly into the idea of dramatic makeup, although when I explained about my blog I was momentarily concerned he may faint in shock at the absurdity of the task I have set myself. Anyway he successfully sold me most of the shop and I trotted off home to paint a masterpiece that Pat McGrath would be proud of.

Two hours and considerable layers of glitter later I had achieved a golden butterfly, complete with sequins and the largest pair of feather eyelashes I have ever seen. It was quite honestly a wonder I could even open my eyes.

The mask went down a storm although I didnt win any prizes, sadly I couldnt compete with the lentil encrusted epic that was wielded by one of the men at the event. However my efforts did succeed in sparking some interesting conversations. My attention was caught by a debate about how different women are driven by different factors when making purchases. Some women, we know are driven by fashion, they slavishly follow the catwalks and or the fashion pages and almost blindly purchase the 'new big thing' regardless of longevity, cut or indeed whether it suits them. Other women are motivated not by fashion but by an innate style, they choose classic shapes and colours and build a wardrobe around themselves and their personality.

I suspect it takes more presence of mind and inner confidence to develop a wardrobe around the latter mindset. The hallowed turf for me sits in no mans land, in the rare ability to achieve a balance of current style and a classic and ownable look. Not many women manage it and those who do it in the public eye become the idols of many. Think Kate Moss, Chloe Sevigny, maybe to a certain extent Alexa Chung, women who define fashion as well as following it. Their individual take on the styles of the moment creating a new layer to their fashion story, making them not only icons to women across the world but muses for those in the fashion industry driving seat.

For these women it is not about the latest catwalk look,  they recognise (subconsciously or otherwise) that fashion is a world that can be shaped with a strong personality and a focus of mind. This is the sort of woman I have always admired, the woman perfectly depicted in The Woman by French Connection. A little bit selfish perhaps, certainly self aware and aloof. Confident but with an air of vulnerability, it is her that people want to be like, the woman for whom fashion is an opportunity, not an obstacle or challenge. To her it is not about buying the 'It bag' or the must have shoe, she is the woman the bag is designed for, the woman on whom it looks natural, a part of her. Not an awkward accessory but the perfect complement to her personality and demeanour. She makes the clothes, they do not make her. For me, this is the ideal, how we should strive to be. We should be more than the clothes upon our back and should allow them to be an expression of ourselves.

Following from this thought I suppose I begin to realise that constant purchasing is not the point. I should notice the quality of things more often, choose things which will will withstand the test of time. Things that age with me and improve year on year. Clearly I need a Mulberry handbag.... my life has a new purpose. The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of fry ups and Formula One with great friends and an awful lot of cups of tea.....bliss.

Day 24 (poorly), to 30....a horrideous week

Today's update is LATE. I have had a most alarmingly busy week, I spent the last few days in a tornado of meetings, brainstorms and creative debates. This has left me with no time to blog and no will to stay awake for any more hours than absolutely necessary. Here is a whistlestop tour of the week.

Saturday 24th started miserably with a most unfair hangover, resulting in a morbid fear that my head would fall off if I moved. Hence no photo, I did not emerge from my bedroom until 5pm at which point I setttled myself on the sofa in a horrifically ugly jumper and endeavoured not to cry in self pity.

Sunday was much improved and I caught up with friends in the pub in a pair of loved yet underused abercrombie maura shorts, jackwills top and my total fave piece of Kate Moss for Topshop. Chats centred around the wonderful backstreet shops of Brighton where Lucy my lovely friend has been seconded. She has discovered a wondrous shop in which you can choose your fabric and have a dress made for the price of the highstreet. Imagine if you will my abject sadness at such a wonderful, tantalising concept, so out of reach for those on HangerStrike. Sob. Again I found myself pondering why it is that immediately I find out about places such as these I want something from them, entirely reardless of whether or not I need an item. This unbalanced interplay between need and want is something I feel will rear it's ugly little head time and time again over the course of the year.

Monday saw me coming to terms with the fact that my blog followers continue to believe that buying presents for my friends should follow the rules of my blog. As a devoted blogger I have decided to take this on board and will now follow the rules of HangerStrike not only for myself but also for my friends. So if you are reading this, you are getting no wardrobe colateral from me this year (sorry).

In response to this new hurdle I was forced to consider what I would buy for Laura, our nautically obsessed, prawn sized birthday girl. Pondering led me to the amazing and fabulously kitsch Keep Calm Gallery for a limited edition screen print.

This got me thinking (as well as buying one for myself). With our constant focus on clothing and our externally presented image that we forget to embrace the full world of art and design. So obsessed are we with the clothing portion of the artistic pie, we have entirely neglected the rest of the artistic world. I feel like this mere month of retail detox has reopened my eyes to the world of art.  How extraordinarily exciting

Tuesday is the day the week really began for me. From this point I fear I had no thought except for the incredible length of my to do list. I failed even to tweet! I know this is shocking in 2010, yet it is the honest truth.

As the week progressed I found myself at work at 10pm on Wednesday (Day 28) with not a soul to take my daily snap! In abject determination I worked out all on my own how to turn the flash off my camera and used a full length mirror to take my photo in the loo. Yes, this is now the definition of commitment. A new sphere of dedication to the HangerStrike cause.

The week gets increasingly scrufftastic as I struggle through. Busy is such an understatement and my alignment with current style slips further and further down the priority list. It's an absolute boon that I am not famous as I cannot fathom the distress I would find myself in if I were papped in such a state of general disarray! Praise the lord for this and for the country location of our workplace.

Friday is the final straw, such disgraceful attire would have placed me in style Siberia for decades. I refused to have identifiable photographic evidence of me in this state and took an opportunity to have a five minute snooze on the office sofa.

So, a pile of photos of the week so far and a new topic to ponder. That of the relationship between stress levels and the effort one puts into individual appearence. As I got increasingly tired I found my interest in my clothing immeasurably reduced. A fact that seems at odds with earlier observations that stress or a lack of control drives an increased desire to buy new stuff. As it stands I am not sure I understand why on earth that this should be. In fact as I got more and more scruffy I still felt the undeniable urge to boost my waning mood with a pretty online purchase. Is it that as life pressures eat the time normally dedicated to personal appearence that we subconsciously counterbalance a lack of time with an increased spend? Do we try to mitigate the negative effects of a lack of sleep and a distinctly pallid appearence with a little bit of credit card bashing? Another thing to ponder as the weekend draws to a close.......

Day 22 and 23 Payday is upon me!

Hello dear readers, I apologise for a couple of days of absence. I had in fact taken out my laptop in order to update  you all with the happenings of the week but alas I passed out at 8.30pm only waking up when my housemate got home at 10.00pm. Day 22 and Day 23 have presented me with two rather interesting challenges firstly it is my friend, the lovely Laura's birthday tomorrow. An exciting yet undramatic event you may think. However I need to buy her a gift, and Laura, just like myself really loves pretty things, in fact she has somewhat of a penchant for nautically themed items. Think anchors on chains, striped tops and red ribboned bracelets. I too love to pay homage to the traditional dress of the high seas and was considering (aloud) making an addition to her lovely collection of memorabilia.

Shockingly a group of my colleagues suggested that this was in fact a breach of the terms of my blog and that in fact I should apply the rules of purchasing not only to myself but also to my entire purchasing behaviour for the year. It was even suggested that were I to buy a wardrobe based gift then it would be no different to an ex smoker spending time breathing deeply in the smoking area of a pub garden. I felt this to be a little strong as an analogy but nevertheless have been left in a quandary as to what to do. The birthday looms and yet I have not made a purchase. Tomorrow morning I will have to fix the problem and make a decision. Whilst I don't want to break the rules of my blog even indirectly, I am not convinced I signed up for a complete abstinence. It's almost too horrid to consider that I may not even be able to buy wardrobe items for other people. I have yet to make a decision as to how to proceed but this conundrum is giving me a stress headache

Day 22: a day with clients made ever so difficult by a challenge to the rules of the game.

Day 23: It's payday and a day of working with kids from the Ideas Foundation, that calls for a practical attire.

So yesterday was a day of hard work, some lovely young people from the Ideas Foundation  came to work to learn about our industry and to help us with some work that we have been doing. Largely therefore I was distracted from the date....it was payday. Now I am not actually the sort of individual to dash out and spend all of my pennies in one ill thought through disaster the day I get paid, however knowing that I couldn't even buy one little pretty thing to reward myself for working hard was most displeasing. Following a long day of being sublimely happy and enthused I felt at the very least I should have been able to have a little necklace....RUBBISH.

So as it was I went home instead of going out (on account of extreme tiredness), had one glass of wine with my housemate, went to bed early and woke up with an extreme hangover. Seriously there is absolutely no justice in the world whatsoever.

Day 20 & 21: Oh no, this is not a photogenic outfit

Mainly today I am terrified at the outfit I wore on Day 20. Despite thinking I looked nice, it would appear that I looked a genuine mess. The day started as any other.....

6.50am alarm clock goes off….press snooze (twice). 7.10am panic and run to the bathroom, clean teeth, shower and wash face (soap in eyes). 7.20am (late) kettle on, stub toe on kitchen door, (knock over ironing board thus waking flatmate). 7.25am makeup on, get dressed after scrabbling in wardrobe for clothes (curse innate hatred of ironing). 7.35am examine hair and attempt salvage of style (panic again as Chris Moyles announces the time and curses his morning guest for being late). 7.45am locate belongings and run down stairs (run back up stairs and collect glasses). 7.50am (late late late) drive to work (same route as always) laugh at Chris Moyles and guest, arrive at work……

I suppose it is clear now that given the scale of the wardrobe task I have set myself, the potential viewing figures of blog (if it is as successful as one hopes) and given my entrenched inability to get up upon first tinkle of my alarm, I MUST consider my outfits the night before.

I have of course tried to console myself over this picture in addition to fervently plotting a safeguard against any possible recurrence. I have considered the very real possibility that this photo is not a valid representation of the clothes I wore on the 20th of this month. I purport that in fact this photo is most unfair, and here dear reader is my evidence. Firstly, my shoes look low heeled at this angle and I can vouch that they are in fact 4 1/2 inch stiletto platforms and completely impractical for the office. One can only surmise therefore that we are suffering from some form of hideously distorted perspective. Secondly, three people told me I looked nice. Thats far more than normal. I can only assume that something funny is going on here, either that or the people I work with lack style. Although, horror of horrors, they might have said I looked nice when I didn't. You know what I mean, in the same sense as when someone demure dyes their hair flourescent red and one finds oneself forced to comment positively in order to provide explanation as to wht you have just reimplanted eyeballs into sockets and retrieved jaw from floor. 

This hideous revelation, in the form of an ill thought through outfit set me thinking about the difference between personal image and reality. That time old conundrum that forces us to seek solace in friends when constructing our 'look'. Our mind tells us that we look an unutterable delight, yet until we step out into the broad light of day, to be scrutinised by friends, colleagues and foe, we never really know it is true. Celebrities the world over know only too well of the horror of public scrutiny. Surely not one of them has ever planned to end up in the dunce section of the style pages, yet each and every one of them with no notable exception will have found themselves unceremoniously plastered over it at some point in their illustrious career.

We can all run but none of us will ever be safe from the grasp of the wardrobe mishap from time to time. The tentacles of the heathen beast that is the closet gremlin will at some point clasp us all around the ankle, taking great pleasure as we fall flat on our face in a pile of ill thought through garments. Celebrity or not, every last one of us will fall foul to this evil little monster. In a way I suppose the wardrobe gremlin is in fact a wonderful leveller. No matter how much money you have, no matter how much care you take, one day he will get you. So maybe, no matter how tempting it may be to point and laugh at the celebrities on those pages, perhaps we should in fact rejoice that they are in fact human, we should comiserate with them on their valiant, yet fruitless attempts to push fashion boundaries and we should remember that in a sense we have all been on that page at least once. 

Day 20: the day I was terrified of. I look like a great big mess......I was sure it looked fine!

Day 21: Client meetings necessitate smartness. A great way to break free from the disastrous grasps of Day 20's malfunction and burst forth in a delightfully happy celebration of cinched in plaid...or something like that.

Day 19 Not a lot going down

So, the other day I was chatting to Caroline, the Denhamator as we like to call her about this wondering I have been doing around the subject of shopping. Following last week's craving for shopping and my hypothesis that in fact we shop to gain control over some point in our life when we find other aspects crumbling like an eroding cliff in a gale.

The insightful lady offered me an alternative view. A view that in fact newness drives our shopping cravings. When life is going badly, when we feel a little bit pants, Caroline suggested that maybe we then associate all around us with how rubbish we feel. Thus meaning that (consciously or subconsciously) we determine that the only thing that could possibly pull us out of the doldrums would be to buy new things absolutely immediately. When things are not going according to plan we blame the shoes that are over two weeks old (tsk) and the dreadfully dull jeans that we loved last week. Desperately we NEED new stuff, not nicer stuff necessarily than we had before but new stuff. Stuff that can never be associated with the unfortunate events that have resulted in the foul mood in which we find ourselves.

Thinking about this over the next few days I found myself increasingly convinced by this argument. A particular memory sprang to mind of a day in March during my 2nd year of university. A boy, had rather unceremoniously dumped me. Not a newsflash you think? Well this dumping would have been insignificant, suffice a few tears had it not been the day before my hair appointment. Now, until this point I had been an unassuming natural blonde, considering a few highlights as my first foray into the world of artificial colour. However when the time came to choose my dye I found myself asking for something different, something which would allow a reinvention of me, I went brunette, with red bits. I hadn't planned it but my circumstance inspired change.

From that moment on I have often changed my hair when I feel like making a conscious statement of change. Both chops and colour changes have, for the last few years, been indicative of moments of significance both small and large. In some way perhaps clothes have been another, albeit less extreme outlet for my emotions. Another way to put old news behind me and get on with the important stuff, the now and indeed the future. I guess you can't really separate the need for control from the need to reinvent yourself of your wardrobe, it is in fact as I suspected all along....girls are terrifyingly complex, even for other girls to understand.

Late photo's I have decided are a bad idea as I have a tendency to look dishevelled and not in a good way. This must be remedied in the coming weeks. This was taken by my housemate at about9.30pm when I had already been half passed out on the sofa for quite some time....NEVER again

Day 18: Pyjama day

So this delightful  post Sunday post has no photo on account of me not really getting dressed to do anything all day. Except a dash to the shops in my scruffs the Sabbath was passed largely on the sofa and largely in a state of semi consciousness. I think this is a common side effect of having a little bit too much fun. My body has begun to fail the unadulterated fun that my mind seeks and yesterday it went on strike.

But, dear blog followers, fear not for todays post. I was lucky enough to pick up Grazia Magazine in Sainsbury's during my shortlived trolley dash and consumed all of the latest fashion news in the windows of clarity that littered my somewhat fuzztastic day.

It was a largely pleasurable review of the week's celebrity and style developments. I caught up on Jen's latest conquest and sighed in despair, I love the girl but if we are to believe the papers surely she has had more men than the legendary Pavarotti had dinners? I was kept captivated with news that Cheryl was not only in hospital but in ITU with her malaria, I admit feeling a mild panic at the thought that my favourite fellow Geordie was so poorly. However a blot was placed on my serene afternoon when I got to page 30.

Following the Lovely Stella M's A/W catwalk shows which showcased more than a sprinkling of beauteous point toe courts (PTC's to the fashion literate amongst us) EVERYONE is wearing them, a little research substantiated that this is not a vicious rumour spread by Grazia alone, Elle also documents a rise in the number of celebrities sporting these early noughties classics. I am reliably informed by my trusty style bibles that the pointy will be the big shoe of Autumn. Every girl worth knowing will be hoofing the skyscraper platforms they have loved for the last two years and whizzing off for some therapeutic bank balance abuse to purchase these newly styled beauties. Now I can't help but think this represents not the meandering of fashion trend that I had dreamed of when I signed myself up for this challenge but is more akin to a hairpin bend. I am NERVOUS. I could be forced into style Siberia this is NOT cool.

If this wasn't nervewracking enough for me on Day 18, I was dealt a further blow when I reached page 42 and the 10th hot story of the week. Trousers are coming back. What in the name of the lord is going on? Trousers went out in my second year of Uni and I have seen not hide nor hair of them since. Faithful blog followers will know that the trouser is the least prominent member of my otherwise plentiful wardrobe. I own two pairs, neither particularly loved, or in fact worn. Both of them grey and both over 5 years old. At this point I admit to having a moment of genuine terror. Pointy shoes can be worked around with the two pairs I actually own, this is a completely different challenge. Bar knitting a pair with the wool of my favourite lounging blanket I fear there is little I can do to conform to this new addition to the fashion canvas. The Miracle Flare and I will not be united for quite some time and I feel I am going to struggle profusely. After quite a few years of grappling with opaque tights, there is a genuine allure to the idea of a new take on the trouser. Think Coco Chanel and the ladies that Yves Saint Laurent made so famous, how I would love to model my 26 year old self on their loveliness. Oh now I am sad, what made me do this silly silly thing?

I had imagined that to some extent I would be able to style and accessorise what I had to keep up with the style of the moment, these worrisome, some may say beastly developments suggest otherwise. I have more concern over my mental state than previously and feel I may need to call upon the support of my followers sooner than I first imagined.

On that note I am off to re examine my wardrobe in the vain hope that I will find something buried in it's depths that resembles a black, pointy toed classic and understated shoe........GULP