Live from London (well, almost...)

There is an interesting conundrum present in our modern world: although there is more being written about style and design than ever before - entire sections of the newspaper are devoted to style these days- a quick glance at what people are wearing suggests that individuals are paying less and less attention to style in their personal dress. 

I am used to seeing a rather despondent styles of dress in my home city, but wondered what I would find when I traveled overseas, as I did recently to the UK and Europe.  This blog post is about what I found in London.

When I was growing up in the UK, no respectable woman went out, not even to do her grocery shopping, without looking reasonably smart.  In those days, that meant a suit, hosiery, pumps, gloves, possibly a hat.  While we no longer expect people to get that dressed up every day of their lives, it's possible to dress casually and still look smart. 

Street scene:more mishmash dressing

Street scene:nondescript dress

Sadly, standards of dress  have gone down in London as much as they have in North America.  However, there are some bright spots as I found when strolling around the streets of central London.







I'm showing some of the examples I found.  Note that if you want to dress in black, it's okay to do that as long as you add some punch of color as a contrast.  Red is a great option, and I'm showing women who've done just that.  It probably didn't take them long to get dressed; looking "pulled together" rests more on thought than money.



Even if you are not keen on red, the classic pairing of beige or camel with black works just as well to provide some relief from the black plus some style, as I show in another photo I took.


And, while following the young lady in the purple dress into Selfridge's (photo below), I got a bonus when she met up with her friend. Stands to reason that one person with a sense of style would be friends with someone else who can pull together a great look!