Taking On The Challenge

Well todays post is a little exciting as it’s the results of a challenge I was recently set by Westfield Stratford. The challenge was to shop with a friend, and buy / style each other in something we might not otherwise pick ourselves. Shopping & Styling. Pretty fun eh :) 

The challenge was based in Westfield Stratford and so it gave me a great excuse to check out the new mall as south west kinda girl I live pretty close to the original Westfield’s, so hadn’t ventured out to the other side of london before. But it was great to see the new store, and again see the amazing range of shops and restaurants available. Westfields are hands down THE best shopping malls there are. No doubt. They have every store, plus all the stores you wish you could pop into (particularly some international stores).

My friend Kat and I embarked on this challenge, armed with some shopping pocket money and found it pretty fun, we’ve been friends since we were 12 so we know each other and our style inside out which made things easy but also more fun :D  Kat doesn’t tend to wear tons of colours, and usually opts for monochrome style outfits so for her I picked a gorgeous mint green jacket and some cute leather sandals (perfect for spring too). I love the colour mint and knew Kat would look gorgeous in it, plus it’s a really simple way of adding a touch of colour to your look, little steps at a time. You can see Kat’s outfit here.

. Topshop Jacques Mid Heels £65 (c/o). Topshop Leather Dress £55 . Topshop Fedora £25 . 

I am quite adventurous with my style, but the one style I always admire but never embark on is the whole geek chic look. Think Alexa’s modern school girl look. So for my challenge Kat spurred me on to get these gorgeous leather topshop shoes – i’d been eyeing them up for ages but never brave enough to make the step and buy them. They were the perfect item for me to have as part of the style challenge, and so glad they’re what I ended up with :) They’re definitely a step away from my usual feminine sandals, but so cool and look great with jeans of dresses (Kat did GOOD).

I decided to style the shoes with my incredible new white leather smock dress. EEE. This is another item I’d seen months ago (in black in the winter) and admired but never actually bought. However as soon as I saw the dress was back in stock, and in white, and running out of stock, I immediately embarked on a man hunt / leather dress hunt to source this amazing garment down. I had another dress to exchange (a see-through Topshop maxi I got for my birthday), so decided to swap it for this one. It took 6 different trips to various Topshop’s across the week (post work) … serious stress, some mental online searching and eventually a shopping bag with the item tucked inside (I actually found it in the Westfield Stratford store) :D I am SO happy with this dress and absolutely love it – it’s so chic and simple, the perfect cut and style. I had to size down to a 6 as it’s actually pretty big, but love how it looks :) 

It was the perfect dress to style with my ‘style challenge’ shoes and made for a really edgy geek chic monochrome look. The final touch was naturally my fedora :)