about your dress: Henry Holland at Debenhams

My all-time favourite blog in the whole world ever is the amazing Domestic Sluttery.  Those Sluts are lovely.  This post the other day led me into the world of H! by Henry Holland at Debenhams, aka clothes and accessories by one of my most-loved designers at Ria-shaped prices.  I follow Mr Holland on Twitter, and his entertaining tweets never fail to amuse me; I think he must be a genuinely Nice Man.  Here are my favourite bits from H!

This practical, everyday long t-shirt is £10.  TEN POUNDS.  For HENRY HOLLAND.  

Add a bit of a pretty floral print and a handy breast pocket, add £8.  Seriously, £18 for Henry Holland.  Is this some kind of sick joke?

This 'Frankie' top with zip detail is cool without being in-your-face about it, and would go very nicely with the pretty floral skirt I bought from Zara today (which was only a tenner, so I think I can justify spending £25 on this top, right?)

Look!  There's shoes as well!  He thinks of everything, does that Holland.  These ace high leg gladiator sandals are an absolute steal at £30, and they're leather as well, so mum would give them a big thumbs up (not that she has big thumbs).

It has to be said, I'm not a massive fan of this blazer, but it was so typically Henry Holland that I had to include it just for that reason.  It would clash with my hair, but if you like it, it's £40.

There's bags and belts and purses and scarves and swimwear as well, all at low low prices.  I'd put money on these selling out like tea lights in a blackout, but I need that money for those sandals.

about your dress: lovely new Yumi dresses

As we stock Yumi at work, I visit their website quite a bit, to a) see if I can find product photos better than mine, and b) gasp at their high high prices.  But today I went on, and found a few gems that we aren't getting in, and now I feel deprived.  Must I pay full price for these?  Really?

The Beatrix dress is £59.95 and is also available as a very pretty skirt, which probably doesn't justify the £44.95 price tag (sadly).

The Angelika dress has the same £59.95 price tag, which again, I personally cannot justify.  If you can justify it, it comes in another colour skirt as well (Yumi call this alternative 'pink', but I call that debatable).

Finally, there's the Butterfly Crochet dress, which has the slightly more Ria-friendly price tag of £29.95 and comes in grey or black (I prefer the grey, I hear Spring is due soon).  I think this is probably the winner.

On a completely unrelated note, do you see the speckling at the bottom of the last photo?  Poor photoshopping, that.  Would never happen on one of my pics.  Oh no siree.

about your shoes: floral pumps from Office

I am officially in love.  Ok, I say that a lot, and you'll come to realise this in time, but I cannot be called fickle.  It's just that I have a lot of love to go around.  The lucky recipient of my affections this evening is this absolutely glorious pair of shoes from Office:

They're also available in black gingham, but it's the floral pair that have stolen my heart, and as an added bonus they've got leather uppers, so my mum would approve.  These babies are only £45, so I am calling them a pay day must.  I think it would be rude not to.

about this blogging thing...

I wanted somewhere I could put pretty things in a manner that other people could see them too, without me bombarding them with emails full of links.  This is how I'm going to do it.

BUT!  I feel like I should make some kind of introduction.  I'm Ria.  I work for a lovely shop called Aspire Style, where I try and make the website run as smoothly as a secret operation to move priceless jewellery and heirlooms from one location to another.  I also use Twitter for work and for me, in case anyone wishes to read my disconnected ramblings.

I'm trying to write a book.  It was going slowly, but now I've got a new laptop I can write in my bed, which should speed things up slightly.  Old laptop used to pass out when he was moved from the desk because he got a bit warm.

So that's it really.  Onto the posting proper...